The West Wind
by whiskeyneat
Summary: Historical AU. 1875, Black Hills Gold Rush. When Madge Undersee heads West to find her missing fiance, she's in over her head and in a world of trouble. In a lawless town on the edge of nowhere, she finds herself putting her trust in Gale Hawthorne, the one person from her past that she knows will break her heart. **UNDERGOING REWRITE**
1. Exit Delly, Stage Left

**Chapter 1 ~ Exit Delly, Stage Left.**

1876, Dakota Territory.

"You're _what_?" Gale repeated, his brain still muzzy from the night before. Delly handed him a clean jar full of water and a small handful of willow pithy. He chewed on the inner bark, making a face, and took a long sip of the cool, sweet water. Leaning back in his chair, he tried to make sense of whatever it was she had been jabbering on about for the last few minutes. "Woman, can't you tell I'm trying to sleep?"

"That chair is bad for your back," Delly said, a small smile tugging her lips. "And besides, everyone knows the only bed you sleep in these days belongs to Comstock Hanna. Now, where was I? Oh-yes. Remember that ... "

Gale tuned it out. He didn't need a play by play of the schedule, as long as everything went off without a hitch and he didn't have to worry about it.

"...and my coach leaves this afternoon, so that my fiancé-" (she blushed) "-and I can reach to San Francisco in good time."

"San Francisco? ... wait, _what_?"

Delly stopped mid-chatter. "I'm awful sorry, Mr Hawthorne, but Wheatley got a telegram about his inheritance from his brother Lars out in California. We reckon we got just enough between us to get out there." She didn't have to say _And away from here_ , but he heard it plain as day. It was common knowledge that Delly, for some insane reason, had taken care of her employer since the day she took over as his right hand woman in his saloon, The Hob. Thanks to Delly's no nonsense attitude, the place had flourished ever since Katniss' departure (he couldn't deny it, that still stung). She balanced the books, she managed the profits, she charmed the liquor suppliers, she kept gals from fighting, and the miners all adored her. But...

"...Leaving?" he repeated in a tone of utter disbelief, running one hand through his dark hair.

Delly looked at him patiently. "Yes, Mr Hawthorne. And getting far away from this town." She lowered her voice, stepping close to his ear. "I reckon that General Snow's got eyes and ears everywhere. Me and Wheatley don't mean to spend our whole lives beholden to the company store, if you catch my drift."

Gale _did_ know what she meant, unfortunately. General Coriolanus Snow owned the mine, and in a sense, he also owned the town. Hell, every saloon on Main Street owed fealty to Snow, and they paid the devil his due - or they found themselves six feet under. "But.. but..." he spluttered.

"Mr Hawthorne..." Delly held out her hand and Gale stood up, crossing his arms. "You've been so good to me. But Wheatley and I... He says it's not healthy for a good woman to work in a saloon." Her cheeks turned pink. "He wants me to be a proper wife and proper wives don't manage saloons, at least not unless they're..."

"Married to the boss?"

Delly eyes went wide's and her face turned crimson. She dropped her hand.

Gale sighed. He couldn't be mad at her. He'd known for a long time that she'd been holding a candle to the wind, hoping for a change of heart. But his heart still belonged to his half-cousin, Katniss, false jade that she was. "I can understand. Wheatley's a good man." _A better man than me_. "He'll make you a good husband." He took her hand. She was trembling. "I'll give you a month's pay-no, hush-think of it as an early wedding present." He wrapped his arms around her in a brief embrace.

"Miss Cartwright!" Wheatley called from the other side of the door, causing her to spring apart from Gale, blushing furiously. "Our coach leaves in a quarter hour!" He opened the door and stepped inside, nodding at Gale. "Hawthorne." Wheatley was a Mellark, tall and stocky with dark blonde hair and a carefully waxed mustache. He didn't look anything like his brother Peeta, and for that Gale was grateful. He might have decked him one if he had.

"Mellark," Gale replied in a similar tone. "Is your youngest brother joining you in San Francisco?" He couldn't even say the bastard's name.

"No, Mother wrote Peeta out of... well, the inheritance is split between Lars and I." Wheatley grimaced. "Mother didn't approve of Peeta rushing off to the gold fields in the first place, and certainly wouldn't approve of his taking an Injun squaw—your cousin," he corrected himself just in time. Gale was just itching to land his fist across a Mellark nose, and one would do just as well as the other. Wheatley read what was on the wind and nodded to Gale. "If that's all, we'd best be on our way. I'll meet you downstairs, Miss Cartwright. Hurry." He tapped his pocket watch and sauntered out the door.

Delly flew to Gale and flung her arms around him. Her lips brushed against his cheek, and she smelled faintly of apple blossoms. "I'll write and let you know when we get there safely," she promised. Then she was gone, and Gale sank down behind his desk, staring unseeing at the mess in front of him. Just what the hell was he supposed to do now?

 **XxX**

 **A/N: Adjusted dates to 1876, not 1878. The Black Hills gold rush took place from 1874-1878 and peaked from 1876-1877. Hope you enjoy this story. As of this note, the timeline will be adjusted to reflect the proper dates.**


	2. To See the Elephant

**Chapter Two ~ To See the Elephant**

Madge Undersee, late of the town of Twelvetrees, West Virginia, stepped off the coach into the bright mid-morning sunshine. _This_ was Panem? It was nothing more than a long stretch of ramshackle buildings on the Main Street, filled with horses and men. And, Lord, it stank to high heaven.

"Excuse me," she piped up, directing her question to a curvaceous blonde her own age about to board the coach. "Where is the hotel, please?"

"Oh, honey, there isn't a hotel," the girl replied. She turned to the young man next to her, who was helping load their trunks. "Mr Mellark and I are leaving, but maybe we could be of assistance—Miss! Are you all right?"

"Mellark?" Madge swayed, reaching out a hand to steady herself. "Not any relation to Peeta Mellark?"

The man with her turned, and Madge felt a wave of hope, followed swiftly by despair. "I'm Wheatley Mellark. Peet's my youngest brother. Can I help you?"

Maybe it was the heat, or the shock, but whatever it was, Madge fainted.

When she came to, a young woman in a low cut red dress was holding a foul smelling bag of salts under her nose. "Finally!" she said, rolling her eyes. "Miss Lah-Dee-Dah is awake!"

Madge frowned, trying to place the young woman before her. She certainly wasn't the same girl from the coach. "Where am I?"

"In hell," the girl said with a twist of her lips. She reeled back and screeched with laughter at Madge's shocked gasp. "My, ain't you got a poker up your ass!"

"Hanna!" Another girl poked her head through the door. Though she was dressed just as scandalously as Hanna, she had kind eyes, and a giant green bow in her auburn hair that made her look younger than her years. Madge clung to the hope that she wasn't where she thought she was. "Don't mind her, miss, she has a strange sense of humor." The new girl handed her a porcelain tea cup painted with pale pink roses. "I'm Annie. That's chamomile. It ought to settle your nerves."

"Annie, the little mother!" Hanna sneered. She tossed her dark, spiky hair and glared daggers at Madge. "Don't you dare turn your nose up at it, not if you know what's good for you!"

Madge took the tea with a smile and breathed in deeply. She blew on it, and took a polite sip. "Delicious. My mother made hers the same way, with just a touch of honey. Thank you, Annie. My nerves feel calmer already." She swung her legs over the side of the divan and tried to stand. The world spun dangerously, and she sat back down. "Oh, my. It seems I may need to rest for a few more minutes." Her corset was digging into her ribs, and she wondered with a pang if it was good for... but no matter. If only her mother were here. _I want my mother._ That line of thought was too painful, and she pushed it away.

"A few more minutes too long! Do you think this is a private room where you can recline at your leisure?" Hanna snapped, stalking over to the mirror over the fireplace to adjust the black rooster plume in her hair.

"What do you mean?" Madge asked with a sinking feeling. "Oh—is this—a _house of sin_?" Her voice dropped. "I can pay. Just fetch my reticule."

Annie frowned. Her eyes went soft and far away, and she turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving Madge alone with Hanna.

"What did you have to go and ask that for?" Hanna spat. "Now she'll go drink her wretched laudanum. It's how she copes." Running a finger over the mantelpiece, she came up with dust and her lips made a moue of disgust. "Besides, how will you pay again? I didn't see you come in with anything."

"My trunk?" Madge asked. "My reticule?" Hanna shrugged, shaking her head. "Oh no."

"Gonna faint again, Miss Priss?" Hanna snickered. "I wouldn't suggest it. That trunk is probably halfway to Virginia City by now. And as for your reticule, I'm sure it's long gone." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Try explaining _that_ to Madam Coin. You'll be paying off your "restful" hour in this room flat on your back."

"I didn't _ask_ to come here!" Madge hissed. She stood up and forced herself to breathe. She put her hand on the doorknob.

"None of us _asked_ to come here," Hanna said bitterly. "What makes you think you'll be any different?"

Madge gasped in horror. "Do you mean to tell me that you are kept against your will?"

Hanna laughed again, a hollow sound. "Ask General Snow. Isn't he the one who brought you here? Let me guess, to be a schoolteacher. Annie fell for that one. I didn't have much choice after he threatened to have my little brother killed." Her lips twisted in an ugly grimace. "Not that it matters, they still sent him down that hole."

"General Snow? I've never heard of him," Madge said.

"You will," Hanna promised darkly. "Don't bother with the knob. It'll be locked from the outside."

Madge had to sit down again. It was almost too much. First, the journey by rail from Charleston to Chicago, which had boosted her confidence and fortitude. Then, the terrifying – and exhilarating, truth to be told – journey by stagecoach from Chicago to Panem. She had loved the landscape, so different from the mountains of home, that she had sketched botanical illustrations and composed songs in her head the entire way. She had hoped to publish the book once she returned home, but now... Now she was alone in this wicked place. "My fiancé is waiting for me to arrive," she said with more confidence than she felt. "If I don't show up, he will come looking for me."

"He'll have to stand in line then, won't he?" Hanna said, bored. She studied her fingernails. "Everyone will want to give the new girl a try."

"Then I will send a telegram to my father," Madge improvised, a thread of panic in her voice. "He has money. He can pay." _And get me home,_ she added in her head. Her father would take her back, and damn the scandal.

"Oh, Daddy can pay, can he?" Hanna sneered. "Then why did he send his precious baby to Dakota Territory all on her lonesome?"

Madge was saved from answering by the sound of the doorknob turning and Hanna straightened, her eyes at once both watchful and wary. The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges and Annie came in, bearing another cup of tea and a tray piled high with food. Madge's stomach growled traitorously. Behind her, an old woman with a pinched face, steel gray hair scraped back in a harsh bun, and shifty eyes strode into the room. Beside her was an imposing man who looked like he could snap Madge like a twig.

"Comstock Hanna, Annie. You may leave us," the old woman said in a voice like dead leaves rustling over stones. Annie ducked her head and scurried from the room. Hanna did not look at Madge, but as she went by she slipped something cold and heavy into Madge's hand. Madge put her hand into her pocket and dropped whatever it was inside. The door remained open, but the older man stood near it. He looked steadily out the window, which Madge now realized had bars across it. She felt sick.

"So. You are the young woman who fainted in the street," the madam said. She looked Madge up and down, unblinking. Madge held herself together. She had people, she reminded herself. She wasn't alone without a friend in the world. "General Snow is a... _personal_... friend of mine."

 _I'll bet._ "General Snow didn't bring me here, if that's what you mean," Madge glared at the madam— _Coin_ , her brain supplied. That was a fitting name for a grasping madam, straight out of a dime store novel. "I am here to meet my fiancé. He is expecting me." She moved towards the door. "Thank you for your hospitality. We will make sure you are compensated for the time the room was occupied," she continued, though the disdain in her tone made it clear just what she thought of the idea.

As soon as she reached the door, however, the big man stepped in front of it. Coin's voice, harsh and cold, floated across the room. "Boggs! Catch her!"

Suddenly his hands were around her neck, thumbs pressing either side. Madge struggled in his grip. To her horror, the room began to swim before her eyes.

Before the darkness overtook her, Madge's brain formed a single thought.

 _The baby..._

 **Author's Note:**

Thanks to everyone who left a review, made this story a favorite, or followed! Updates will be weekly, though some chapters are shorter than others depending on how fast-paced the action is.

If you're confused about the pairings, don't worry. All will be revealed in time.

The next chapter, _Another Man's Problem_ , will be up next week. However, I am getting married in about ten days, so the next update after that may be pushed two weeks out.


	3. Another Man's Problem

**Chapter Three ~ Another Man's Problem**

Night came, and everything went to hell. The dancing girls were late getting off the stage. The piano was out of tune and the accordion player showed up drunk and got into a fight over cards. The dollar girls fought with the dancing girls over who would waltz with the miners. There was a brawl in the smoking room over a supposed hidden ace up someone's sleeve. The bartender ran out of whiskey and no one knew where the key to the stockroom was hidden. Gale found himself in the wrong places at the wrong times, doing all the wrong things.

"Damn her to hell," he growled, sitting at his desk at the end of the night with the men he trusted most: Thom, Finnick and Thresh. They'd been together since boyhood and the Indian Wars. Finnick and Thresh had been with Gale and Thom since they left the army, riding on that last wave of the Comache campaign before they washed up in Panem and struck gold with the saloon.

"You shouldn't have let her go, boss," Thom said. He scratched his chin. He was a broad-shouldered man, dark bearded, with a voice as smooth and blue as the mountains that he and Gale hailed from. "She was a damn fine woman."

"Truer words were never spoken, my friend," Finnick said. "But our darling Delly wanted something the boss couldn't give her." And he would know? The Irishman was a looker, with his thick bronze hair and green eyes. A womanizer, too, but everyone in Panem knew his heart belonged to the one woman he could never have. Maybe that was why he waxed romantic about other people's love lives, sticking his nose where it didn't belong.

Gale growled at them and poured himself more bourbon. He should have listened to Delly that morning. He'd had to break down the stockroom door and his shoulder hurt like the devil. Now he would have to replace it before all the drunks in town found out and drank the place dry. "Shut up. She never would have left if it hadn't been for—"

"Let's face it, boss, Wheatley could give her what you couldn't." Finnick nodded at Thresh, who went on in his slow, measured voice. Thresh was a man of few words, but when he did speak, folks listened. "Our sweet Delly deserves the sun and the moon. Not some saloon owner who spends his days treating her like a wife and his nights fucking some crib girl." He took a gulp of his drink and finished it off, pouring himself another. "Delly may have had a heart of gold, but she wouldn't lift her skirts for just any man."

"So you're trying to tell me that if I'd spent less time with Comstock Hanna, she wouldn't have left?" Gale stared at the bourbon. Fuck this. It was a night for whiskey. He rattled his key in the bottom drawer of his desk and grabbed the bottle, plonking it on the table with more force than necessary.

"No, that's not it," Thom said. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Even Comstock Hanna knows Delly never could have replaced..." he trailed off at the look on Gale's face. "I mean..."

"Think carefully," Gale said. His tone was steady, but his face was like thunder.

"Katniss," Finnick unhelpfully supplied. Gale turned on him, his eyes murderous. To Finnick's credit, he didn't flinch. "Look, boss. We all know how you felt about her. But she's gone now."

Stolen right out from under his nose by that bastard Mellark. "Fucking Mellarks," Gale swore.

"I know something that'll cheer you up," Thom said. Gale's glare caused him to put up his hands. "Word on the street is that Coin had a new girl. Doesn't she owe you a favor? Bet you could cash in on that before the rush." He hurried to add, "It'll take your mind off those damned Mellark boys, and ... the other matter."

"I'll think about it," Gale said. Trouble was, now it was all he could think of. "Aw, hell," he said, throwing back the last of his whiskey. "I'm in."

 **A/N:** next update, _The Perfidy of Men_ , will be in 2 weeks since I won't have my laptop with me on my honeymoon.

"Dollar girls" were paid $1 per waltz and they also got paid 25% commission for every drink they sold.


	4. The Perfidy of Men

**Chapter Four ~ The Perfidy of Men**

"You can't do this!" Madge rasped, her fists beating at the door. She had been screaming for hours, but no one came. Finally-finally!-she heard a key turn in a lock. A door opened up in the wall, flush with the wallpaper. Shocked and angry with herself for not seeing another way out, she grabbed a vase off the mantelpiece and held it aloft, ready to defend herself from attack. But it was only Annie. Defeated, Madge set the vase back down. "Hello, Annie," she said.

Annie startled, her hand flying to her throat. "Oh! It's you!" Her eyes were wide and dilated and Madge remembered what Hanna had said about laudanum. "I didn't know you were still here."

Madge sank to the floor, her arms around her knees. Her hands were on fire. She opened her palms. They were full of splinters, her knuckles bruised and swollen. "I've been screaming for hours," she said slowly. Was Annie stupid? No, she corrected herself, Annie was drugged by her own hand. _Stupid._

"Oh," Annie said, straightening the knickknacks on the shelves. "Coin makes sure our gentleman callers are entertained all night. We're kept very busy, you see. It was very loud outside last night too. I think a lot of the miners were blowing their pay at The Hob. It's very popular, you know." She turned over the coverlet on the bed and began aimlessly fluffing the pillows. "They have dancing girls and dollar dance girls, and a handsome Irishman for a bartender." A wistful smile tugged at her lips. "He's _very_ charming. A girl could lose her heart to him."

Madge didn't care. "Look, that's all just wonderful. But Annie, I shouldn't be here!"

"General Snow will decide that," Annie said. She began humming a tune Madge didn't much care for, but she ignored Madge's attempts to make further conversation. "The Hob is a good place," she went on, oblivious. "Mr Hawthorne runs it with his cousin-or he did, until she left to run her pa's gold claim."

"What?" Madge paled. Surely there couldn't be _two_ of them in the world. "What did you say, Annie?" Her mind raced. Mr Hawthorne... here, of all places? She thought back to the lonely mountains, and the boy who would bring strawberries to her back porch, before he followed the drum of war and no one ever saw him again. "Annie!" she snapped, more sharply than she meant to. "Tell me about Mr Hawthorne! What does he look like?"

Annie was humming again, a different song this time, _When This Cruel War is Over_. Madge yearned to slap some sense into her. "He's very handsome, if you like war heroes."

"Annie!" Madge cried in frustration. "What does he look like, Annie?"

"Oh, I don't pay attention to that sort of thing, he's never been one of my regulars. I try not to remember them, you see..." Annie looked sad for a moment, then perked back up. "Comstock Hanna would know. He spends most of his free nights with her."

Madge ground her teeth in frustration. "She certainly won't tell _me_."

"Tell who what, darling?" Another woman swept through the door in the wall in a heavy cloud of jasmine musk. "Oh, Annie, that bed doesn't need an airing. I believe Octavia took care of it when our new girl here was still asleep." She slanted a glance towards Madge, looking her slyly up and down. "My, she is a beauty. Snow just keeps on sending us the loveliest ones, doesn't he?"

Madge glared at the woman. She oozed sensuality in a way that made Madge uncomfortable. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were still smudged from the night before, hair loose and golden around her shoulders, and she was wrapped artfully in a silk robe that left little to the imagination.

"He didn't send me! Why won't anyone listen to me? My name is Madge Undersee. I'm from Twelvetrees, in West Virginia. I came here on my own! To meet my fiancé," she finished. "Who is expecting me!"

The older woman looked at Annie, then back at Madge, sharply. "She doesn't hear anything when she's like this," she said to Madge. "I'm Cashmere." She took Madge's hands in hers and winced upon examining them. "Oh, you poor thing."

"I'm not supposed to be here! I'm not even sure why I was brought here instead of to a doctor," she finished.

Cashmere and Annie shared a surprisingly lucid look. Cashmere pursed her lips and sat down on the bed, patting the spot next to her. "You'd better sit down, darling. This isn't going to get any easier."

"I'm a prisoner, aren't I?" Madge said. Her strength seemed to have deserted her, and she couldn't stop trembling. Terrible things happened to women in these places. Tears threatened to roll down her cheeks, and she blinked ferociously to keep them back. _Be strong,_ she told herself.

"Not a prisoner," Cashmere corrected gently. "There _is_ a way to buy yourself out."

"Or if you get lucky, a man will fall in love with you and buy out your contract from Coin," Annie interjected dreamily. "Then you'd be as free as a dollar dance girl at The Hob."

"She is _obsessed_ with that place sometimes," Cashmere confused to Madge in a voice barely above a whisper. "I can understand why, though. If you were first bedded by Mr Odair, you would be obsessed too." In a normal tone, she spoke to Annie directly. "Be a dear and go get me my hand cream, would you?" When Annie had gone, she turned back to Madge. "She knows what she is, she just chooses to ignore it. We all have our own ways of coping, I suppose. Now, I don't think you are being quite honest with yourself either - this wayward fiancé of yours. Does he know you came here to fetch him back to civilization?"

Madge knew she wore her heart on her sleeve more than she cared to. She just wished she knew how to hide it from the prying gaze of others. She didn't trust Cashmere, no matter how kind the other woman seemed. There just was something _off_ about the whole thing. Of course, she'd never set foot in a den of iniquity before, either. Maybe that was why she felt so confused. "He is expecting me," she repeated. It sounded like the pathetic lie it was.

"Well, I'm glad you're not one of Snow's waifs," Cashmere said briskly. "They don't tend to last long if they have to be broken." She studied Madge curiously. "In a way, it will make all of this so much harder for you, my dear. Does anyone know where you are?"

"Daddy," Madge said. She would _not_ cry. She refused to cry. "I mailed him a letter from Chicago three weeks ago."

"And your father is in this Twelvetrees?"

"No, we moved to Charleston after Mama died." Her lips were numb.

"Oh, dear." Cashmere was shaking her golden head. "That is not good. You see, Madge, once you're beholden to Coin you're beholden to Snow. And Snow owns this town."

Annie came back into the room. This time, Hanna was with her.

"Get out," Hanna spat at Cashmere. "She's Coin's toady," she informed Madge. "So I hope you've been keeping that pretty mouth shut."

Cashmere glared right back at Hanna. "I was only trying to get some answers. There's no need for hysterics."

"Hysterics! Oh, that's rich, coming from you! Now git. I need to talk to the new girl."

"There has been quite enough talking." The door swung open and Coin stepped through. "Good work, Cashmere. You may have the night off. Annie, go help Octavia finish the mending. Hanna, I believe Boggs needs your... special massage talents. He threw his back out hauling our new girl up the stairs last night. She's heavier than she looks. And you," she continued, pointing a finger at Madge, "you stay put. And shut up. We don't want the customers thinking anyone is here against their will." Her cold eyes narrowed in malice.

Cashmere and Annie filed out of the room. Hanna was the last to go. She bent her head to Madge's ear when Coin's back was turned. "Remember," she said, just below a whisper, "the door locks from the outside. **"**

 **. . .**

 **. . .**

 **A/N: As always, thank you so much for all your reviews, follows and favorites! They are like gold, and they make my day :) I know you're all waiting with bated breath for Madge and Gale to finally meet, and it's coming soon. Thanks for being so patient with me!**


	5. The Devil's Own Luck

**Chapter Five ~ The Devil's Own Luck**

Gale had never hated any woman as much as he hated Alma Coin. Even more, he hated the fact that he'd once done her a favor - before he knew what she was - and that she now owed him a favor in return. If it was up to him, he'd buy Annie out of this place for Finnick, and set her free. But it wasn't that kind of favor, unfortunately. Her contract was owned by Snow, and Coin wouldn't dare arouse Snow's suspicions by implicating herself in setting Annie free.

The front parlor was empty when Gale let himself in through the back door. The silence in the place was deafening. Thom, Thresh and Finnick had deserted him, off on errands of their own. He forgave them. He knew they couldn't stand the place either, especially Finnick. The Irishman had a soft heart when it came to Annie Cresta, and Gale couldn't blame him for not wanting to see how hard she was hitting the laudanum these days.

He made himself at home, propping his dirty boots up on the table and lighting one of the expensive cigars Coin kept for her high rolling customers. She would come sooner or later to see who had tracked mud all over her fine carpet and "forgotten" to use the spittoon.

"You!" The old woman's voice exploded into the room. "You are not welcome here! Get out!" Her face turned so red she looked like she was about to have an apoplexy. Gale hoped to hell she would. That would save him a lot of trouble.

"Word on the street is you have a new girl," he said. He found he was perversely enjoying himself. "I seem to recall, in fact, that we have a favor owed between us. So I'm calling it in."

"Snow will be here any minute," she hissed. "So you can take your 'favor' and stick it up-"

"I'm sure Snow would be real interested to know just why you owe me said favor," Gale replied, and was gifted by the sight of her skin turning from red to mottled puce.

"This is blackmail!" She snarled, trying to maintain her rage and failing. The old bawd was terrified. Good.

"Is it?" Gale smirked, crossing his arms. "Maybe your new girl is sick. Maybe she's got the flu. Tell Snow she's on her monthlies or something. You know how he's terrified of contagion." He saw the defeat in her furious eyes as she pointed to the stairs.

"Third door on the left," she ground out in fury. "And then this matter will be square between us, Mr Hawthorne."

He ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time in his rush to escape her presence.

 **XxX**

Before the door, Gale smoothed down his hair with the palm of his hand. The mid-morning air was still and quiet. Peaceful. Even here, in the opulent decay of Panem's best brothel, peace. He laughed quietly at himself. The sooner he was out of here, the better. It didn't do to dwell. He raised one hand to knock, and then he heard it, just beyond the door.

Someone was sobbing, as if their heart would break. Gale took a deep breath. He'd never taken a girl against her will before, and he didn't intend to start now. He knocked, once. The sobbing stopped. Light footsteps came to the door.

"Who is it?" It was a soft voice, ragged with grief. The cadence in it reminded him of home. Before he knew what he was doing he had opened the door. And then he was falling, falling...

 **XxX**

 _He is just about to set down the twist of strawberries on the back steps_ when the mayor's daughter opens the door. He's been listening to the piano through the open window, the haunting strains drifting gently into the morning mist.

 _In Scarlet town where I was born,_

 _There was a fair maid dwellin'_

 _Made every youth cry Well-a-day,_

 _Her name was Barb'ra Allen._

"Hello, Gale." Madge Undersee smiles, that brief, intangible thing between them rising so quickly he wants to capture it between his palms. He never wants to let it go. He is fifteen but he is also an old man, he's been an old man since his father died at Shiloh and left him the man of the house. "Are these strawberries for me?"

He desires her and despises her all at once. She reaches out a hand for the strawberries, popping one into her mouth. She sighs, her eyes rolling back with delight, and he wants to cover that pink mouth with his own. If he were honest with himself, he's thought about kissing her ever since he caught her stealing apples from Old Man Abernathy's orchards. That was the summer before the Yankees came. The summer everything changed. Now he owes her a debt he cannot repay, and between them lie all the secrets of that summer, a bond the two of them can never escape.

So no. He will not kiss her. He will not think of her, not like that. He wants to touch her cheek, to wake her up, but he is just a dirty coal miner's boy, dust beneath her feet. She doesn't even know how good she has it, living in this mansion, protected by her Daddy's money, while all around the world falls to rot and ruin.

"What were you playing?" he asks instead, though he already knows the answer. This is safe, even in a world where nothing is safe any longer, especially not whatever is left unsaid between the two of them. He means to let it stay unsaid, to let those secrets bide. But he cannot resist tucking the pale gold curl back behind her ear that's come undone from her braid, and she closes her eyes for a moment, cheek resting against his cupped palm. They spring apart from one another, and her smile is as vulnerable as the moon. That isn't uncommon. He already knows he can charm a woman with just a smile, aged eight to eighty.

"Barbara Allen," she answers, cheeks turning pink. "I'm still trying to perfect it for the piano. What do you think?" She looks up at him from under her dark gold lashes.

"I hate it," he says. He drops the strawberries, and they roll across the floorboards, falling to the earth below. "But not as much as I hate you." Her smile melts like a paper doll left out in the rain. The pain of guilt takes him by surprise.

"Gale..." she says, her voice breaking.

If he looked behind as he stormed down the hill, he would never be able to leave. So he just keeps on going, into an uncertain future, away from the mountains and the girl with the strawberries on her lips and the promise in her eyes.

 **XxX**

Gale sucked in a breath of shock, which was quickly replaced by horror. Not her. Not now. Fate was as fickle as She was cruel, and here was living proof. "Fuck," he swore, rage spilling through his veins. Rage at Coin, rage at fate, at everything he could not change. Rage was better—anything was better but the reality in front of him. _Madge Undersee_. Here, now, in this place.

 _Are those strawberries for me?_ She was staring up at him with those big eyes, green as the river after icemelt. She did not know him. He didn't know whether to feel saved or damned.

"Please," she said. Her voice was a husky whisper. "Please help me."

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. How would he tell her that he couldn't help her? That helping someone wasn't what he was here for – unless it was to help himself _to_ her – and that he'd forgotten how to be a hero long ago? Back when he was a boy, and all the world lay before him.

Now he was a man, and the world was a more infinitely darker place than he had every dreamed.

That man straightened his shoulders, and held out his hand. "I'm here to help," he answered. She trembled, biting her lip. "It's all right," he said. "I won't hurt you." He wanted to crush her into his arms, to taste forgiveness on her lips.

Thankfully, he resisted the urge.

"My name is Madge Undersee," she said. Again, he felt that rush, hitting him square in the solar plexus. No. _No, no, no._

When he didn't offer his name, she frowned. "I'm not supposed to be here. Can you please help me get to the telegram station so I can wire for help?" That wouldn't work. The telegram office was owned by Snow, and only sent out approved messages.

"I'll do you one better," he said, cursing himself inwardly, but his better instincts overtook him, and it was too late for regrets. "Come with me."

 **XxX**

 **A/N: Thanks to Hawtsee, Carol, EllieRigby, madgefan, hairymayojar, catniphawthorne, P1Hunger-Games-Lover and all the guests for your wonderful reviews; and all who have followed or favorited.**

" **Barbara Allen" is a traditional ballad from the 17th century. There are many versions on YouTube.**


	6. A Woman Scorned

**Chapter Six ~ A Woman Scorned**

When Madge looked up at her rescuer, she felt the horror of the past few days draining away. His face was older now, but she could never forget those piercing gray eyes. He looked dangerous and devilishly handsome, with his dark stubble and that wicked scar running down the side of his face, but oddly, something about his presence made her feel stronger. As if she wasn't alone anymore.

She wanted to trust him, she really did. But she had trusted too easily in the past, and that was how she'd gotten into this mess in the first place.

Cynically, she thought of Peeta. Would he _really_ come if he knew she was here? Or had his honeyed whispers just been lies? He'd seemed sincere enough at the time, but really, hadn't she just been a means to an end?

He'd painted her portrait and taken her innocence with him. All those things he had said - that her money didn't matter, that she was the most beautiful girl in the mountains. That somewhere, out West, there was a place where a person could be free.

She should have known it for a lie when his letters dried up after that first one. By then it was too late. She'd missed her monthlies once, three times, five times. Her sin was that she was too proud, and too headstrong. She had wanted him to prove himself because she didn't know how to step out of her own comfort zone. So she'd bought that ticket to Chicago, thrown caution to the wind and decided to travel to Dakota Territory on her own.

He'd take her in once he saw her. He'd embrace her with open arms.

Only she knew the truth – that name that had slipped out at the height of passion, as he spilled his seed into her. Whoever _Katniss_ was, she had a lot to answer for. Madge's hand went almost unconsciously to her belly; though the small swell was hidden by her corset, she knew she was Ruined, and soon everyone else would as well.

That was why she had to find Peeta. He would make this right, she was sure of it.

She looked up at the man before her. He was staring down at her with a mixture of disbelief and impatience.

She frowned. "I'm not supposed to be here. Can you please help me get to the telegram station so I can wire for help?"

"I'll do you one better," he said. "Come with me."

She set her hands in his, and his gray eyes turned stormy when he saw her swollen knuckles, livid black and purple. Madge tried to pull away, but he turned them over, the fury growing on his face as he saw the badly plucked splinters. She winced, and he gently tucked her arm into his.

"I'd kill a man for less," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Alma Coin has a lot to answer for."

That was the all reassurance she needed to give him her trust completely. "I'm ready," she said. "Let's get out of here. Also, once my luggage is found, I can pay you."

" _That_ won't be necessary," he sounded insulted. "We can discuss it further at my place. I own The Hob, the saloon across Main."

"Ah, you must be Mr Hawthorne then." When he reared back in surprise, she explained. "Annie told me about your place." Did Fate have such a wicked sense of humor that he did not know her? Well, the past was perhaps best laid to rest. She schooled her features into politeness, giving away nothing. Two could play this game.

"Annie," he said, his features softening. "She's one of the good ones." He was leading her further down the hallway, and when she looked up at him questioningly, he said, "I know the back way out."

"Is this a place you frequent often, Mr Hawthorne?" she teased.

He bit back a laugh. "You've caught me out, Miss Undersee. My right hand gal... my _former_ assistant... Delly," he scowled, leaving her wondering what poor Delly had ever done to earn his ire. "Never mind that. A man has needs."

 **xXx**

They ran into Hanna going down the back stairs. Her face split into a wide grin when she recognized him, and then her features tightened when she saw Madge.

"You're going to be in a world of hurt when Coin finds you, Miss Priss," Hanna said, baring her teeth at Madge, who shrank against Hawthorne's side.

"I'm helping Miss Undersee get to safety," Hawthorne said. Hanna blanched, and Madge thought that if the man couldn't see that he had Hanna's heart, then maybe he wasn't half as clever as he thought he was. If anything, Hanna's smile grew tighter.

"Hawthorne, you are the world's biggest fool. She's taking you for a ride," Hanna's hand was on his chest now, and a note of pleading had entered her voice that was painful to hear. Madge's heart ached for her. "If you were gonna use that favor to break any of us out, why didn't you take Annie? Who cares about this new meat? You don't even know her."

Hawthorne removed Hanna's hand from his shirt and tightened his arm around Madge. Shouting erupted from the upstairs hallway. Coin had found the empty room and she was screeching for Boggs. Hanna's face was pale and angry in the dim light. She looked like she wanted to cry or claw Madge's eyes out. Madge inched back, wary. She knew which one she'd pick if things were the other way around.

"Exactly," he said. "She doesn't deserve to get tangled up in this mess. Snow holds Annie's contract. I can't just waltz her out of here without Snow's thugs gunning for my blood. I have people who need me. If I want to change things, I have to have the full might of the law behind me, and my own people to back me up."

"You dumb, pathetic fuck," Hanna hissed, incensed. "I should have known you were like all the rest, thinking with the head between your legs instead of the one on your shoulders." Tears glittered in her eyes.

 _Uh oh._ Madge knew a woman scorned when she saw one. Hanna shoved Hawthorne, grabbing Madge by the arm as she rushed upwards past them. She opened her mouth and started hollering for Boggs.

"I've got her! Here, we're here!" Hanna was shouting when Hawthorne clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Shut up!" he growled. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

"I'm not going to let you take her when it's me you should be helping!" Hanna cried, raking his cheek with her nails. "If you wanted to thrust your prick in that stuck up bitch so bad, you should have waited in line like every other man in Panem! Now you've shot our chances for the rebellion, just because you want to fuck a know-nothing girl!" She slapped him, hard; then collapsed against his chest, sobbing. Over Gale's shoulder, she shot Madge a look of triumph.

 _It's not a competiton,_ Madge felt like saying. Or was it?

"Snap out of it, woman!" Hawthorne shook Hanna. "You know I need you here to be my eyes and ears. She's not a part of this. I'm just trying to get her to safety – that's all." His voice dropped, gently, and Madge felt her blush creep to the roots of her hair. She felt very awkward, as her position on the stairs gave her no way to avoid eavesdropping. "If I want to fuck anyone, Hanna, it's you. Only you," he reassured her.

"Not _Katniss_?"

Madge reeled. But there was no time to ponder Hanna's jealous snipe. Boggs' footsteps sounded on the hallway near the door, and the door opened to the stairwell, throwing the three of them into stark relief.

"Darius! Cray!" Boggs bellowed. "Tell the sheriff I found them!"

XxXxXx

A/N: I know you're all thinking "why would Peeta do that? It seems so OOC!" - you'd be right. You see, this story was originally intended to be the side story of a different work, the one about Katniss and Peeta. However, it kind of took over and became the main story on its own. Peeta is did not intentionally mislead Madge. Keep reading to find out what really happened...and what happens next!

Thank you all for the great reviews. They brighten my day! Thank you to Hawtsee for recc'ing my fic on Tumblr, to Tafferling for coming over from Discord, and to EllieRigby for such long reviews. Carol, you'll find out soon...but not too soon.

Since you're all such great readers, here's a sneak peak for next week's chapter, Ace in the Hole.

 _"Fuck," Gale said, reaching for his Colt._ Fuck, fuck, fuck _. There was no other way around it, he was going to have to shoot his way out of here. Boggs might not be a problem, but if the so-called sheriff, Snow's lackey Romulus Thread, was here already and he'd brought reinforcements... So much for leaving Madge Undersee out of this mess._

 _She was crouched on the stairs, hands protectively around her middle, terror written across her face. Hanna had fled in the opposite direction as soon as Boggs appeared, intent on saving her own skin. He should have known._

 _"Get behind me," he ordered. "_ Now _."_


	7. Ace in the Hole

**Chapter Seven ~ Ace in the Hole**

"Fuck," Gale said, reaching for his Colt. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_. There was no other way around it, he was going to have to shoot his way out of here. Boggs might not be a problem, but if the so-called sheriff, Snow's lackey Romulus Thread, was here already and he'd brought reinforcements... _So much for leaving Madge Undersee out of this mess._

She was crouched on the stairs, hands protectively around her middle, terror written across her face. Hanna had fled in the opposite direction as soon as Boggs appeared, intent on saving her own skin. He should have known.

"Get behind me," he ordered. " _Now_."

 _Thunk._ The heavy noise of a bolt being drawn back was the only warning the two of them got. Faster than he ever knew he could move, Gale pinned Madge to the opposite wall, and the roar of the shotgun blast was followed by a slug burying itself in the bannister where Madge had been standing only seconds before. She let out a muffled yelp against his shoulder, and before he knew what had happened, she had pressed her lips to his in a fierce kiss that shot fire straight through his veins.

Pushing her away, his eyes trained on the upper doorway, he said, "Run out that back door and don't stop until you get to the house with the geese — Mr Abernathy's place. _Now._ "

Madge ran.

Heavy boots thundered down the hallway. Gale cocked his revolver, and all hell broke loose.

 **XxX**

Everything happened fast, too fast. One minute Gale was aiming his revolver at Cray, the next thing he knew he was flat on his face, someone slamming him to the landing from behind. Bullets rained down every which way from above, ricocheting in all directions. Upstairs, he could hear Thread screaming at his lackeys to aim properly and Coin screaming bloody murder about them damaging her property.

Gale took the lull in the gunfire to twist out from under his attacker and reach for the knife in his boot. He rolled over and Finnick darted away, the blade grazing his pant leg.

"What are you doing here?!" Gale demanded. "Trying to get killed?!"

"Saving your ass," Finnick said, deadly serious.

"I don't need you to _charm_ our way out of here!" he grumbled. "Look, is Madge - is Miss Undersee safe?"

"Hell if I know. I'm here for - Look out!"

The window to their left shattered in a fresh hail of bullets, and Gale heard the screams of women erupting from the upstairs landing. The bottom door opened and Finnick was at his back. Now they were surrounded on both sides.

"Don't shoot!" Her voice came out in a wail, and Romulus Thread emerged in the doorway, his arm around Annie's neck and his pistol jammed under her chin.

Time slowed, and seemed to stretch out indefinitely. Gale was aware of Finnick's sharp, indrawn breath, and the way his body tensed. "Steady, Odair," he hissed, and time contracted. Loud footsteps rushed up the stairs and Finnick went down. Gale whipped around barely in time to see Darius nearly on top of him. He'd forgotten about the red haired deputy.

Darius liked to drink in The Hob every night, Gale recalled. His favorite drink was white lightning, and his favorite dollar dance girl was a little dark thing called Leevy. When he was deep in his cups, he sang "The Yellow Rose of Texas" in a deep baritone that made grown men weep to hear it. Gale cocked his revolver and pulled the trigger, but the bullet jammed in the chamber.

"I'm real sorry about this, Hawthorne," Darius said. Then the butt of his rifle connected with Gale's head, and the world vanished.

 _When the Rio Grande is flowing,_

 _The starry skies are bright,_

 _She walks along the river_

 _In the quiet summer night:_

 _I know that she remembers,_

 _When we parted long ago,_

 _I promised to return again,_

 _And not to leave her so. (1)_

 **XxX**

The sun was sinking in the sky when Gale came to. The only thing worse than the burning in his eyes was the shouting of the crowd. Someone kicked him in the side, and his eyes snapped open. He tasted dust and blood. His head felt fit to explode.

"You're one lucky son of a bitch, Hawthorne," Thread chuckled, forcing Gale to his feet and prodding him forward. "I was counting on a hanging, but hanging's too good for the likes of you."

Gale blanched when he saw where he was headed.

The whipping post.

 **XxXxXxX**

A/N: "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is an American folk song dating back to 1853. It's thought to be about a bi-racial African American woman. The Confederates who fought for Texas in the Civil War also sang it, replacing some words with "soldier'.

I hope you all don't hate me too badly for my love of cliffhangers. I wanted to have some things match canon, like Peeta's leg... This chapter just wrote itself, and I do feel bad for Gale. Soon they will meet again, even if they're pretending they don't know each other. In the next chapter, _Guilt by Association,_ more Hunger Games characters appear. And as always, please leave your thoughts and feedback!


	8. Guilt by Association

**A/N: Third time's the charm. FFN doesn't like my line breaks for some reason... Anyway, here's chapter 8 a bit early! This chapter's definitely longer than chapter 7, although I'll never be a 5k chapter type of person-it's just not my style. Enjoy!**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter Eight ~ Guilt by Association**

The shooting began when she was halfway down the street. A woman screamed. _Annie_. Madge broke into a run, nearly bowling over the few people that were walking about their business. "Mr Abernathy!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Mr Abernathy!"

"Hold everything, little darling," a big black man in faded army blues grabbed her by the shoulders with one hand. The other was missing below the elbow. Madge looked down at it and gulped. To her credit, she didn't scream again. She squared her shoulders.

"Are you Mr Abernathy?" she panted, out of breath. A corset was not made for physical exertion.

"Chaff," he said with a gleam of white teeth. "What's the rush?" He cocked his head. "Seems a bit early for a shootout."

"I need Mr Abernathy!" Madge cried. "Mr Hawthorne sent me. I just came from...Madam Coin's," she wheezed.

"Oh, shit." Chaff turned on his heel and raced into the nearest back garden. Madge followed quickly behind. A goose honked at them, but Chaff shooed it away. "Haymitch Abernathy! Get your drunk ass out here! Hawthorne needs our help!"

A tall, well built man hurried out onto the porch. He swayed where he stood. Hanna was with him, helping him strap holsters to his chest. She glared at Madge.

"Haven't you started enough trouble?" She finished tightening the straps. Abernathy pressed a quick kiss against her forehead that seemed awfully intimate to Madge, but what did she know?

"This her?" Abernathy asked Hanna. He let out a low whistle. One eye was bloodshot, and his chin wore a few days worth of ashy golden stubble. He stank to high heaven of cheap rotgut, and Madge's stomach roiled unexpectedly. "Hello there, sweetheart." He winked at Madge, giving her a lazy once over.

A woman screamed from the direction of Coin's, and Hanna's eyes went wide. In a whirl, she grabbed the axe right off the chopping block, and ran down the street, but not before spitting in Madge's direction. "Stay away from us! This ain't your fight!"

"Sorry, darlin'," Abernathy said, jamming his hat on. He and Chaff raced down the street.

 **XxX**

Madge was still standing in Haymitch's yard like a prize fool when they found her. A man on an impeccably white horse rounded the corner, flanked on either side by two desperadoes on mules. Madge felt a stirring of fear, but refused to give them the satisfaction. She took a step back, then on second thought turned and fled into the garden, trying to look like she belonged there. The geese milled around her, honking loudly.

"Well, well, well... who do we have here?" The man on the white horse addressed her directly, tipping his black derby. He was handsome, in that dandified way of city dwellers, with piercing light-colored eyes and a stylized brown beard and mustasche. When she didn't speak, he continued. "It is very rude not to speak when spoken to, young lady." He nodded to the men next to him, and they dismounted, advancing on Madge. "If you are amenable to it, let me extend my invitation for a refreshing lemonade on the verandah of Capitol Manor. There's no need be afraid. My name is Seneca Crane and I simply wish to extend our hospitality on behalf of my employer, the esteemed General Coriolanus Snow, in welcoming you to our little town."

"Did Peeta send you?" But it didn't make sense. Why would Peeta be behind this? She instantly regretted saying his name.

Something cold flickered behind Crane's blue-gray eyes, though he tried to hide it with a genial smile. "Peeta Mellark. Well, well." He smiled, and it was not a kind smile. "I really must insist on that lemonade now. I find it inexcusable that such a lovely young woman would come to my town and reject my overture of... friendship. And I do hope we shall be friends."

Madge took a step backward into the flock of geese, who spread their wings wide, honking fiercely. Loud shots came from all directions, peppering her with blood and feathers. When she opened her eyes, dead geese lay haphazardly across the yard. Her eyes widened in shock and dismay. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she thought she might be sick. "You...you..."

"You are looking quite out of sorts, Miss...Undersee, was it? I believe it will be better all around if you just come with me. _Now_." Crane continued, just as genially as before, though now she heard the steely threat behind his honeyed words. "After all, we wouldn't want you to meet the same fate as your feathered friends, now would we?"

 **XxX**

"A beautiful view, is it not?" Crane waved his hand out at the valley spread below them. The house was situated on a hill that overlooked the ramshackle town, the mine, and the Black Hills in the distance. It was a broad, white villa, with a blue slate roof and a wrap around porch. The lawns were dry and yellow, parched from lack of rain. Yet the breeze still held the faint scent of roses.

Crane offered his hand to Madge to jump down from the palfrey, but she ignored it, sliding off with a thump. A cloud of dust enveloped her, going into her eyes and nostrils, and she choked, coughing wretchedly. Crane stepped back politely, offering his handkerchief. Madge took it, and rose, flashing a deliberate ankle. Crane stared at it appraisingly, letting his gaze linger on her womanly shape from bustle to bosom.

"You are a prairie rose, Miss Undersee," he murmured, brushing a smut off her cheek with his thumb.

"I don't believe we have been properly introduced," she said icily, rearing back. "Don't you dare touch me without my permission again."

"In that case, we must rectify matters – for I know I will want to be touching you again, and as often as you will permit it," he said in a low voice, his eyes never leaving hers. "How do you do." Giving a practiced bow, he doffed his hat, taking her hand in his. His lips brushed across her skin, lingering for far too long. Her skin crawled. She tried to snatch her hand away, but he tucked it into his elbow, looking down on her with a smirk. "I am Mr Crane, General Snow's goodwill ambassador and man of business. And I think you shall do quite nicely in our little coterie, as long as you play nice. In fact," he continued, in that maddeningly soft voice, "I believe it will be better for all parties – especially Mr Mellark – if you are very, _very_ nice to me."

An icy trickle of fear crept down Madge's spine. She recalled Cashmere's words. _Snow's waifs...They don't tend to last long if they have to be broken._ Was this how they broke people? By threatening their loved ones?

He walked her up the steps and into the house, where a young redheaded woman in a maid's uniform was waiting. "This is Miss Undersee. Please take her to the powder room to freshen up before she meets the General."

The girl nodded, once. Her eyes dropped to the floor.

"Adieu for now, my beauty," Crane crooned in a silky undertone. "I hope that you and I will become very - _very_ \- good friends. I can tell already that you are a woman whose company is meant to be _intimately_ enjoyed. It is pleasant make new friends, is it not?" He didn't wait to for a reply, but strode on, deeper into the bowels of the house.

Madge rubbed furiously at the spot his lips had touched her hand. "What an insufferable man," she said. "Is there a way to get out of here before I am missed?"

Somehow, she knew it was her only chance.


	9. Pay the Devil His Due

**Chapter Nine ~ Pay the Devil His Due**

 **a/n: The story takes a turn into darkness at this point, so fair warning. I tried to use lesser offenders for one character's racist taunting, however if your stomach is easily turned by violence, you may wish to skip this chapter. As always, thank you for all the reviews!**

 **XxXxXx**

The anticipation was almost worse than the humiliation.

"Snow wants you to know your place, and I'm the man who's gonna to show folk what happens when one of their beloved heroes gets on the wrong side of the law." Romulus Thread rocked back and forth on his heels, chuckling to himself. A crowd had begun to gather, and Gale forced himself to meet their eyes. There was shock there, horror, and some unexpected satisfaction.

At least his younger sister was with his mother and her new husband at the fort in Yankton. Gale thought he would never be grateful for the weasel, but at least Posy wouldn't have to watch this. Rory and Vick were with the army, but they were no longer on speaking terms with him. Still, he hoped they wouldn't rejoice when they heard the news. Lesser men might, like those on the edges of the crowd who had brought drinks and jerky to enjoy the show.

"People of Panem!" Thread bellowed in a showman's voice. He was enjoying this, Gale realized with a sinking heart. The sheriff probably practiced this speech in his shaving mirror every morning in case he ever got a chance to use it. "Take a good look! This half-breed is guilty of trespassing, kidnapping one of General Snow's doves, and shooting at a sworn deputy of the law! The punishment is fifteen lashes!" He held up two whips: one, a bullwhip, used for oxen; the other, a cat o' nine, commonly used in army floggings.

The whip cracked, and Gale tensed. A long whistling sound cut through the air, and he sucked in a breath as fire erupted across his shoulder blades. The whip drew back across his shredded shirt, almost a caress. Then it whistled again, stopping just before contact. Gale pulled at the ropes tying him to the post, testing their strength, but they didn't budge.

It was a trick.

The second caught him by surprise, and his whole body flew forward, jarring his wrists with the momentum of it. Searing pain blazed across his flesh as one whip lifted and the other danced across his shoulder blades. He struggled to hold still, but the assault was too much, he could not regain his footing. The whips came down, one over another, until all he could see was a white sheet of blazing pain before him.

He heard Thresh's voice on the edge of the crowd. "Cut him down!"

"Don't..." Gale rasped _,_ shaking his head at Thresh.

"Did I hear you, boy?" Thread smacked the ground with the whip, and Thresh flinched, just. A twisted smile spread across the sheriff's face, and he crooked his finger at the tall black man.

Thresh went on, like a fool. "He didn't do anything any man here wouldn't have done for an innocent woman, Sheriff. If you have to whip anyone, whip me instead."

 _Penance_ , Gale realized. Thresh had never stopped trying to absolve himself of guilt from the horrors they'd been forced to perpetuate in the Indian Wars. "Don't, Thresh," he whispered. "You don't owe _me_..."

"That's a mighty fine offer, boy," Thread smiled, but it was not a kind smile. He lowered his voice, "but I've slaked my thirst for African flesh with that little sister of yours already."

Thresh's eyes turned dark with anger, and he clenched his fists, every muscle in his body tensing before he launched himself at Thread.

"No!" Gale roared at his friend, but it was too late. Darius and Cray dragged Thresh off, with help from the crowd. It took five grown men to subdue him.

Thread spat on Gale's face. "That's what I think of your friend's offer. For insubordination!" He roared to the crowd. They roared back. "He'll take the black's lashes too!" He leaned in, and whispered, "Like a man, Hawthorne."

The lashes came down hard and punishing after that, each strike blurring into the next, and he bit his lip so hard his mouth filled with blood. After that, time slowed, and there was nothing but the thundering of his heart in his ears as he slumped forward and focused on his breath, just one after another after another.

 **XxX**

"Cut the ropes...get him out of here before..."

"It won't stop..."

"Run and get the medicine woman..."

 **XxX**

He came to in a haze of agony. He was lying on his stomach on something hard and sticky, he smelled whiskey and the fug of Abernathy's cheap cigars. Gale turned his head and vomited. There was a shout of disgust as it splashed all over the floor, but Gale didn't, couldn't care. "Where..." he tried to sit up, but the pain was so excruciating he couldn't move except to flex his fingers. His vision swam, dark at the edges. His wrists hurt too, they were raw and stung like hellfire.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Hawthorne! Your back is after lookin' like..." Finnick ran out the door, and Gale could hear retching. He would have laughed if he remembered how. For a former soldier, Finnick had never done well with the sight of fluids after his bloodlust had worn off.

"It's gonna be ok, boss. Those bastards won't get away with this." Thom gripped his hand, hard. "Hold still, this is gonna hurt."

The rotgut rained down on him like liquid fire. Mercifully, he lost consciousness.

* * *

When he woke again, he was being carried by Thom and Haymitch up the stairs. "Where... where is... " _Madge_. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He could barely get the words out. His heart was slamming against his ribs, and he struggled to stay conscious. Spots danced in front of his eyes when they laid him on the bed.

"Thresh? Haymitch and Chaff got him, boss. He's safe." Thom pressed a glass of water to Gale's lips, but he was shaking so badly that most of it ended up on the floor.

 _No... where is... where is..._ He moved his lips, but no sound came out.

"What the hell were you thinking, boy?" Haymitch's voice was sharp. "It's too early in our little campaign to come out, guns blazing - especially without back up! Back up is _essential._ Didn't the army teach you nothin'?"

 _They taught me how to kill and be killed. How an enemy captain can bring a tiny town to their knees. How neighbor will turn on neighbor, just to curry favor with a uniform. How a mother sounds when she's begging for her child's life. How to track a man for weeks until you know him by his habits...and how to kill him stone dead._

But it hadn't been the army that taught that to him. It had been long ago, in another life. If _she_ was here, it meant the past had truly caught up to him, and nothing good could come of Fate putting Her hand to the wheel.

He forced that line of thought away. It was growing harder and harder to concentrate on the present. Images swum through his consciousness: his mother, fifteen years before, sobbing in the barn over the telegram in her hand. His little sister's birth, when she opened her eyes and looked at him, stealing his heart forever. Katniss, showing him how to shoot a bow, a smile in her dark gray eyes. And young and running through the green meadow, her golden hair streaming loose behind her, a smile on her lips as she kept just out of his reach, laughing, laughing...

" _Madge_."


	10. No Place For A Woman

**Chapter Ten ~ No Place for a Woman**

"Madge!"

Madge ignored the over-familiar use of her name and kept knotting the strips of bedsheets. The chair wedged under the doorknob would keep him out for now, and she had taken the heavy, silver backed hand mirror from the vanity to use in case he did something so uncivilized as to break down the door.

It was better than nothing.

 _There_ has _to be a better way than this_ , she thought resolutely, but unfortunately that was the way the world worked. She was seen as nothing more than a possession, rather like a piece of furniture, to be shuffled about on men's arms, passed from one to another. Peeta had been the exception to that, and though there hadn't been love between them, exactly - she could at least admit that to herself - he had treated her like a human being. Like she _mattered_ in some deep, indefinable way.

He'd been the only one to talk to her like a human being once her mother began to die, the only one to draw her out of her shell. Yes, her father had paid him to paint her portrait (the Undersees would never be so uncouth as to have a common photograph taken, after all), but she and Peeta had struck up such a strong rapport between them that she'd allowed herself to dream that...

Well. That was neither here nor there. _Crying over spilt milk,_ her mother's voice chided in her head. _What's done is done, my girl._

She continued knotting the strips, faster now, for the sun had begun to streak the sky all over rose and orange-gold, and she would have to hurry if she was to make it back to the town before dark. _Done_. Finally! She stood and crossed the room to the open window. Looking at the sheer height of the drop didn't improve it.

Madge swallowed, a momentary pang of unease creeping into her heart. _Damn and blast these skirts!_ She vowed to invest in a pair of bloomers... If she ever got out of this alive.

 _"_ Miss Undersee! Open the goddamned door!" The hammering resumed in earnest now, and Madge swallowed her fear, tying a knot she hoped would hold to the nearest bedpost.

There was nothing for it. She threw the makeshift rope out the window, and started down.

 **XxX**

Madge didn't often like to admit that she'd made a mistake, at least not out loud, but it was becoming painfully obvious that her desperate plan had been ill-thought out. She was a third of the way down, her boot heels balanced precariously on the painted wooden planks of the house, when she heard the upstairs door slam open with a mighty crash.

"Miss Undersee!" Seneca Crane's voice roared from the bedroom.

"Fuck!" Madge blurted out in a very unladylike manner, clinging to the rope and trying to walk backwards down the wall as fast as she could. She looked down. She was perhaps fifteen feet from the hard packed earth, barely four feet from where she'd begun on the second story.

She felt the rope slacken and go into free fall. Screaming wildly, she clawed at the slats of the outside wall, desperately seeking a handhold. It wasn't true, what they said about your life flashing before your eyes. All Madge could think of was the little one inside of her, and keeping it safe.

Suddenly, the rope jerked, taut. Madge clung to it in a panic, tears blinding her eyes. _We're safe, little one._ It was the first time she had thought of the tiny creature inside of her as more than a burden. Her eyes were drawn up to the window, almost unwillingly. Seneca stood there, holding the rope in one hand, the other braced against the windowsill. His eyes were monstrous in the fading light.

"You can come up willingly... Or so help me, I will drop this fucking rope." His teeth bared in a feral grin. "Snow said he wanted you...he did not specify that you should be in one piece. And a little whore with her legs broke can't run away." He saw her waver, and pressed on. "If you come up now, I shall be the soul of knightly valor." But the veneer of civility had cracked between them, and they both knew it.

"Swing left...swing left, miss!" She could barely hear the soft voice. She wondered where it was coming from, and then she saw them. Two small girls, one fair and one dark, were leaning out of a third story window. They pointed to Madge's left, where a spruce tree stood. A blue ribbon lay snagged on a cone, fluttering, though no breeze blew. They were watching her intently, and did not smile.

"Left, miss. Look down." She didn't know who had spoken, or if they were just her imagination playing tricks on her.

 _Wonderful_. Was she going mad as well?

It wasn't like she had any other choice. Crane had forced her hand, and she _must_ escape - or perish.

Madge tore her gaze from Crane's and dropped her eyes, trying to appear like she was having second thoughts. She slanted her gaze left, and she saw it. A hedge. Not much, but it was better than the ground. She looked back up to thank the girls, but they had vanished. Taking a breath, Madge pushed off from the house with one last ferocious swing.

The look on Crane's face was priceless.

Madge let go of the rope too late and flew into the spruce face first instead, the sharp needles of the spruce stabbing her palms as she barely caught the trunk. Her shoulder made contact, hard, and she half-fell, half-shimmied the rest of the way down. The ribbon drifted down, whispering against the nape of her neck, and she shoved it down her front almost in afterthought.

Disoriented, she staggered away from the tree. Which direction was Panem? The hills loomed dark and black around her, and if she squinted, she could _just_ make out -

"Looking for something?" The smell of roses and blood swirled out towards her, tendrils reaching. She gagged at the scent. She looked up, and saw him. A gaunt, white bearded man, dressed finely in a suit and tails, a rose in his boutonnière and fine ruffled cravat at his throat. Almost as if he were about to head to a cotillion ball, not stranded in this wretched outpost. It made her head hurt.

"Yes, I'm looking for the town, sir." She raised her chin a fraction of an inch. "I seem to have lost my way."

"Ah," he said, but he made no move to help her. "I think not. I think you are, rather, an ungrateful guest. One does not simply leave a host's home without making the proper niceties. It is quite rude, young lady." His voice was a slow Georgia drawl, made the even more menacing by the calculated chill of it. "Why a young lady of breeding should seek to quit herself of my company so soon... I should venture to presume she is no lady at all."

"What do you want?" The adrenaline from her wild escape was wearing off, and she was tired, so tired. She did not want to play games.

"Come, sit with me, my dear Miss Undersee. I promise you shall remain unmolested." He saw her quick glance up at the window, and chuckled, patting the rocking chair beside his. "Mr Crane is having his wounds tended to as we speak. He wrenched his back attempting to haul you up that ingenious rope of yours." The ghost of a smile came across his face, and in the golden light his mouth appeared very very red and very very wide.

 _The better to eat you with, my dear._ Madge gave an involuntary shiver. The heat was beginning to leach from the air, and once the sun sank, her recent travel by stagecoach had taught her that it would be wretchedly cold. Had she really only gotten off the coach two days ago? She felt like she would turn gray from much more of this. "How do you know my name?" She mustered her best manners, smiling just as falsely as he.

He held up a thin sheaf of papers. "You are Miss Madge Undersee of Twelvetrees, West Virginia. In April of this year, a certain young man wrote a letter to you. When you did not reply, he wrote another, and yet another. It seemed to us - to me - that he wanted to reach you quite badly... For a time. It is too bad that the post often does not make it out of our little town on time. Nor telegrams." His smile went quite wide again, and Madge thought she would collapse if she did not sit down, so up the stairs she went, and perched on the edge of the rocking chair beside the man whom she now knew was General Coriolanus Snow.

Without missing a beat, he handed her a glass of lemonade. It was warm to the touch. Inside, a dozen or more dead butterflies swirled in a sticky cluster. Feeling nauseous, she held it in her hand, but did not drink.

"A wise move, Miss Undersee," he drawled, nearly purring with approval. "Who knows," he continued, removing the glass from her hand and setting it back down on the table between them, "but it could be poisoned."

" _What_!" Madge drew back in affront. He drew his lips back in a grimace or a smile, she could not be quite sure which. Her heart stilled. His tongue darted out, flicking over his teeth, and he stared into her eyes a beat too long.

She broke eye contact first, dropping her eyes to the letters. "So you are a thief?"

"I prefer to think of it as a reconnaissance tactic. I was in the Army, and old habits die hard, I'm afraid." He clicked his tongue against his teeth.

"But whatever would you need to spy on Peeta for?" She clasped her hands in her lap. They were betraying her by their shaking.

"That's where you come in, Miss Undersee. I believe you and I can help one another."

"Why should I help _you_?" She squared her shoulders and looked down her nose at him, showing more bravery than she felt.

"You have helped me enough already, more than you shall ever know," he said, quietly laughing to himself. "Tell me, does the name _Katniss_ mean anything to you? No, of course it - Ah. You _do_ know it."

Madge twisted her skirts in her hands. The pale blue material was now a dingy gray. She felt Hanna's gift in her pocket and slid her hand in, surreptitiously running her fingers over it. If she was careful... She swallowed her fear, looking General Snow straight in the eye. "I may have heard it, but I assure you, I do not know the bearer."

" _Liar_." His hand snaked out, grasping her chin, and he turned her head this way and that. "You are bleeding, Miss Undersee. Allow me." He dabbed his handkerchief on his tongue, and then pressed it against the cuts on her face, which were now beginning to sting. "I wouldn't want my newest acquisition to become marred too soon. Oh yes," he continued, his fingertips stroking the line of her collarbone, "I know a certain man that makes it a point of pride to mark each blushing maid he comes across. So that no man can ever forget _he_ had her first."

"You wouldn't be singing my praises to this ungrateful whore, would you, Coriolanus old friend?"

Madge forced herself to stay perfectly still. A smooth finger stroked the nape of her neck from her hairline to the collar of her gown, and with a vicious yank the material ripped through the buttons all the way down her spine. The tip of something sharp and metal whispered against her skin, and she was unable to hold in a sob of fear.

General Snow's smile, if anything, became wider. "Seneca's greatest weakness is also his greatest kindness. If you think you are a pearl above price now..." He drew a dead blue butterfly from her lemonade with his fingers and pressed it to her lips. "Did you really think I would forgive your willful disobedience so easily?"

Crane's hands swept the pins from her hair and they fell to the porch with a cacophony of pings. He was breathing heavily, his thumb kneading the curve of her lower back as she fought to wriggle away. "Such splendor, Miss Undersee." His voice was hoarse with reverence. She froze in place.

"Let me go! Oh, please, I beg you!" She choked out, trying to pull herself away from Crane's grasp. "I have never done you an injustice, sir! I had never heard of this place except from -"

"Yes, from Mr Mellark." He nodded, sagely. "Because you are new to this place, I am afraid you do not know the rules."

Frozen to her chair, she could but shake her head. " _Please_." Such a paltry word. It was having no effect in the least.

"Perhaps I should give you to my friend. Would that rout the weasel and his jill out of their warren? Or, perhaps... Perhaps he does not care for you at all, and advises you to quit your affection for him." A malicious gleam appeared in his eye. He patted the letters affectionately. "Yet, here you are, all the same. Why is that, I wonder?" He leaned close. "Desperation makes people do foolish things, Miss Undersee."

"I told you, I don't -"

"Oh, if you only knew! This is delicious indeed. I shall take the utmost delight in breaking the news to you. Once Mr Crane is done with his business, that is." He dabbed his lips primly. "Such an impeccable canvas of flesh, do you not agree, Seneca?"

"She will be my masterpiece, General." The knife caressed her cheek, and Crane wound one hand in her hair, yanking it back to bury his face in it. She heard him greedily inhale. "I told you we would become _intimate_ friends, did I not, Miss Undersee?" Without waiting for an answer, he ripped her dress the rest of the way down the back.

"Let me go!" Madge screamed.

Seneca's only answer was to pull Madge up and press his bulging breeches into her back with a dark laugh. "I'll enjoy the breaking almost as much as I enjoy the unmaking."

That was it. Madge shrieked like a wild thing, and plunged Hanna's knife into Crane's thigh. "Bitch!" With a swipe of his fist, he cuffed her across the side of the head, toppling her to the porch.

Stars swam in her eyes as she got up on all fours. She tasted blood, and her ears were full of a high pitched buzzing. Luckily, her vision was clear enough. She turned her head to look at Crane, who was cursing a blue streak. He had pulled out the knife, and it lay forgotten on the porch. Blood spurted between his fingers.

"She fucking _stabbed_ me, Coriolanus!"

It would have been funny if she hadn't been in such a panic to escape. Madge grabbed the knife. It was slick with blood, and she wiped it on her skirts. Standing, she turned to flee.

Quick as a wink, Snow's hand darted out and latched around her wrist. He had risen, and was leaning heavily on a silver-tipped cane. "Not so fast, my dear. Unless, of course, you wish to tempt Fate."

"I'd rather deal with _Fate_ any day than stay here one more minute!" She held up the knife, her eyes wild. "I told him not to touch me without my permission! And don't you touch me either!" The knife flashed, and he yanked his hand back too late. Blood bloomed across his knuckles. Madge opened her mouth, a horrified apology on the tip of her tongue.

The mask had dropped. His eyes met hers, flat and cold, and he put two fingers to his mouth and let out a whistle. The answering howl sent a trickle of fear down her spine. "Now _run_ , Miss Undersee, for if you do not, you will surely wish you had."

 **XxXxX**

 **A/N: As always, thank you for your reviews. As for Seneca Crane, he was a Gamemaker in the books/movie and just happened to come out as a different stripe of killer here. Let me know what you think! Madge isn't out of the woods yet (literally).**

 **I only have two more buffer chapters before I run out of pre-written material, so chapters will switch to once every two weeks unless I can pull another all-nighter or two.**


	11. When This War Is Over

**A/N: I accidentally posted the wrong chapter this morning, so if you got two alerts, that's why! This is another Madge chapter, since this works better for the flow of the story. Next chapter will switch back to Gale and continue on with the POV switches. Hope you all like this one!**

 **XxXxX**

 **Chapter Eleven**

 **When This War Is Over**

 _And as you walk through death's dark veil,_  
 _The cannon's thunder can't prevail,_  
 _And those who hunt thee down will fail,_  
 _And you will be my ain true love,_  
 _And you will be my ain true love._

 _~ "My Ain True Love", Alison Krauss._

The dress came off first. She couldn't run with it on, that much was plain. From the house, she could hear Crane shouting about the filthy things he planned to do when he caught her, and for his horse to be saddled. She didn't know if it was an empty threat, but didn't care to speculate. She tossed the dress into a heap on the road, and raced down the darkening slope.

Halfway down the hill, she fell and turned her ankle. She could hear hoofbeats behind her. With an with an animal sound of terror, she scrambled into a copse of trees and hid, and not a second too soon. Crane thundered past on his grey, his face hideous to behold. She waited until he had gone and then ran for the forest; half-crawling, half-limping. She had to run, to hide like a little animal and go to ground. But where? The woods were dark and silent, seemingly void of animal life.

Madge looked up at the sky, begging the heavens silently for a sign.

When she heard Crane's horse returning, her legs made the decision for her, and she ran heedlessly into the woods.

 **XxX**

It had been a mistake. Every step hurt worse than the last. But she had to keep going. When she looked ahead, there was nothing but the whisper of the pines and the rustle of the leaves. There was no breeze, and the forest was still—too still. And yet it seemed to _breathe_.

"It's going to be all right, you'll see," Madge whispered, resting a hand on the swell of her stomach. It was hard to believe that a tiny creature was growing in there. It kicked her hand, and she sucked in a breath. "Oh, sweetling... We'll be safe, soon, I promise." It was a promise she firmly intended to keep.

But Fate had other plans.

 **XxX**

 _"That's the Big Dipper...And that is called Orion's Belt._ He was a great hunter in Greek mythology." Madge rests her head in the grass of the meadow and sighs with contentment. He is so close she can smell him, a heady mixture of bay rum and horses, and something else, his own indefinable scent. She points up again, turning her head so that her lips nearly brush his ear. "And there's my favorite, the Crown of Ariadne."

"Who is Ariadne?" Gale sits up on his elbow to look at her. He tickles her nose and lips with a blade of grass.

She mimics him, going up on an elbow as well, though she'd rather be lying in the grass with him she knows it isn't exactly proper. "She was the daughter of King Minos, and she loved a prince named Theseus, whom Fate had chosen to die in the bull dancing pits."

"Fate? That seems a cruel thing."

"Well, Ariadne was a clever girl, and she gave him a magic ball of string find his way out of the labyrinth under the palace, for there was a monster there..."

Gale smiles. She does not think she has ever seen him so unguarded. "I could listen to your stories all night, Miss Undersee."

"You know it's Madge out here, Gale."

When his lips brush against her earlobe, she shivers with delight. " _Madge_ ," he whispers. "Save the best parts of the story for next week." To know that there will _be_ a next week sends a rush of heat to her belly, and she knows that she is caught as surely as a fox in a snare-the difference is that she doesn't want to escape, now or ever.

"Then tell me a story, Gale." She laces her fingers through his, shocked by her boldness. They will be missed, for the curfew imposed by the Yankee captain has come and gone, but she does not care. All that matters is that they are here together. She will not feel guilty about her mother, all alone in the house with those bastards-

"Tell me why you're frowning so fiercely then," he teases.

"You know why." She crosses her arms. "Do you know what _He_ said to me?"

She does not have to say who _He_ is. Everyone in town has learnt to fear the name of the Yankee captain. _Speak the Devil's name, and he appears._

"Madge." Gale is looking at her with concern in his eyes and not a tiny bit of fear.

She is shaking with anger, and it frightens her, to know she is so close and yet can do nothing. She should be a good daughter, like her father made her promise before he left for the War. A good daughter would smile and pray to God until her knees were bloody and raw, a good daughter would bear what she must for her mother's sake. But she is not a good daughter. "He said-" she draws in a ragged breath, knowing she will scream or cry and humiliate herself utterly in front of this boy, this boy she has loved from afar for so long-

"Madge," he says again, and he takes out his handkerchief, a worn and well-mended thing, embroidered crookedly with a posy of violets. His fingers brush against hers and the warmth spreads through her again, but it is not enough to cut through her displeasure with her lot, which has lain dormant for too long.

When she speaks again, her voice is full of cold fury. "He _implied_ that my mother's medicine could be rationed out if I gave him my _full cooperation_. Isn't it enough that the whole town thinks my _aunt_ is a Yankee whore?" She hisses through her teeth, unable to stop the angry tears from coming. "I swear to God, I'll fucking kill him."

"Those are dangerous words," he says, and pulls her back down into the sweet grass, the cicadas humming all around them. "Best put those evil thoughts from your mind. Didn't I promise you a story? My favorite star is the North Star. He is not a traveling man, but always stays in one place. Here." He guides their interlocked fingers across the night sky until they are pointing at the star together. "When you look at this star, you will always know how to find your way home."

 _You_ _**are**_ _my home_.

•

The North Star. _You are my home._ Madge looked up at it, then nodded. She would keep going. To her right, back to the road. To her left, what she hoped was a shortcut.

It wasn't.

The path ended sharply in a dead end, lit only by the moon, bright as a lantern in the inky sky.

A flash of something white darted past the corner of her eye, and Madge whirled. Nothing moved in the darkness, the dry creek bed devoid of anything save the moonlight dancing on the creaking treetops overhead. The call of an owl startled her, and it gave her just the burst of speed she needed to scramble onto the smallest boulder. The hoot of the owl came again, and was answered. Madge pulled herself up onto the next boulder, the stones scraping her shins. She hid in the shadow of the cliffside, her breath coming in short gasps. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, her ankle had begun to throb painfully inside her boot. She fumbled with the laces, and eased the boot off her foot with relief.

"Miss..."

She whipped her head around, calling "Who's there?" in a low voice, but only the faint breeze answered, the smell of dead leaves and the coming autumn on the wind.

"Don't stop, miss, or the mutts will eatcha..." The piping voices spoke in synchrony. The howling of the hounds traveled down the long tunnel of the ravine.

Making her mind up in one instant, Madge grabbed her boot and began to climb.

 **XxX**

Reaching the top, she flopped into the grass in relief.

"Hold, what do we have here?" A shadow leapt from the dark, and Madge's scream was cut short by a hand over her mouth. "Do you want to bring the whole pack down on us? Then do as I say!" A hand tugged at her, forcing her to increase her pace.

She bit back a moan of pain. "Please, I... I've hurt my ankle. Go slowly, I beg you."

The shadow scoffed. A woman, trying to make her voice sound low. "I was only trying to help."

"Yes, and I thank you for it, but I really _have_ turned my ankle."

The woman sighed. "Is that why you're only wearing one shoe?"

"No, I'm Cendrillion," Madge shot back, unable to keep the sarcasm from her tone. "Of course it is. I wouldn't go running around in the dark with one shoe off and in my petticoats if-"

"Miss Undersee!" The voice traveled down the ravine, echoing off the rocks, and Madge froze. _Miss Undersee...Miss Undersee...Miss Undersee..._

"Shit!" The woman hissed. "This is bad. Who in the hell _are_ you?"

The light came bobbing down the dry creek bed, choked with leaves and pine needles. Something white at the bottom of the pit: a strip of cloth, a hand... Madge turned her face away, and the girl beside her gave her a gentle shove.

" _Hide._ " She pointed to the trees that clung to the side of the ravine, then to the shadows beyond. "Away from the light."

Madge crouched in the safety of the ivy curtain and watched as the girl hid behind a tall sequoia, pulling a bow off her back in one swift motion and nocking an arrow. The horse's hoofbeats grew louder. Shadows loomed and danced across the trees.

 _Hoo. Hoo._ The owl flew overhead, the swoop of its wings loud in the stillness of dusk.

Madge jumped, startled, but the girl remained crouched in the tree roots, her eyes trained on the corner of the ravine. She was so still that she might have been a part of the forest herself, a guardian spirit of the wood and all who resided there.

"Are you ready to admit your defeat, Miss Undersee?" Mocking laughter filled the tunnel as Seneca Crane turned the corner.

The arrow loosed from the bow and arced through the golden light. It flew true, plunging into the bloodstained bandage wrapped around Crane's thigh. He shouted in pain, dropping the lantern on its side, and it rolled away from his hand.

Another arrow sang as it loosed from the bow, and hit a pile of leaves just in front of the horse, who screamed, rearing. Crane struggled with the reins, but it was too much for the terrified creature. It bucked, throwing Crane halfway off the saddle with his foot caught in the stirrup. The third arrow, when it came, was too much for the horse, and it bolted, dragging him away with it, his cries growing fainter and fainter in the ever increasing darkness.

 **XxX**

"Hurry," the girl said. Miraculously, the lantern had rolled into a bed of sand, and had gone out, leaving only the girls and the moon and the windswept sea of grass before them. She gestured for Madge to follow her.

Ignoring the throbbing in her ankle, Madge ran beside her new ally, sisters in the dark.

 **XxX**

"Here." Surprisingly, they had reached their destination without incident. The girl opened a door made from willow withies bound together, and went straight to the fire in the center, blowing on the embers and feeding it until it began to blaze merrily again. "Tea?" She asked without turning around. "If you need to make water, we have another cavern with a pot. Just go left, then right, then left again. Take the candle." She indicated a candle stuck in a brass candleholder.

Madge found the bucket with little difficulty. Some kind soul had provided a pile of soft moss, a sliver of soap, and a cup of water to rinse one's hands off with afterward. Well, it only made sense if the girl lived here, Madge supposed. She, too, would not wish to go out after dark if "mutts" might eat her...whatever _those_ were.

She did not care to speculate.

Her curiosity got the better of her as she passed the first room, and she ducked in, her jaw dropping as she took it all in. It was _full_ of sacks. She ventured to open one, and sneezed, sparkling flecks dancing in the air. _Gold_. The room was full of _gold dust._

"Do you take honey in your tea, Miss Undersee?" The girl's voice called down the hall. Madge jumped, guiltily. She set down the sack and backed out of the cave, hurriedly shaking out her underskirts.

"Yes, please!" She took a deep breath. _Gold_. She shook her head. She was here for the father of her child, not for greed. That way only lead to madness.

Turning away, she hurried back to the central chamber, where the girl had set two stumps up beside the fire. She handed Madge a porcelain teacup, rimmed in gold leaf and painted with roses. A growing suspicion loomed in her mind.

"This looks like my mother's teacup." It came out more accusingly than she'd meant. "I mean-"

"It was _my_ mother's." The girl poked the fire with a long stick and then sipped her tea. She was wearing a man's coat, and a pair of buckskin leggings. Her feet were clad in moccasins. She was lovely, with golden-copper skin and dark hair. Her eyes were gray. _Like Gale's_ , Madge thought. It almost made her want to trust this person... Almost.

"Now, why don't you tell me what you have to do with Snow. No lies," the girl cautioned, pulling out a wicked looking blade and resting it on her knees, "or I'll split you from nose to navel."

Madge's hands instinctively covered her belly, and she bared her teeth. The girl reeled back with a look of shock.

"Fuck! You're pregnant! It's not _Snow's_ , is it?" She sounded as horrified by the statement as Madge felt by it. "Or _Crane's_? Is that why they're looking for you?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," Madge held her hands up. "Please, can we try this again? My name is Miss Undersee." She held out a hand, and the girl shook it.

"Everdeen." She grabbed Madge's teacup from her hands and dumped it on the ground. "That isn't good for babies. I'll make you a new cup, I think I have some red raspberry leaves around here somewhere—but you must be fit to fall asleep where you sit." She passed Madge a wool blanket. "Put this around your shoulders, it'll get damned cold tonight. Snow – the real shit, not the old devil – it's on the wind tonight. We have another cavern, if..." she looked like she'd swallowed a lemon. She didn't want Madge to spend the night any more than Madge wanted to herself.

 _We_. So she wasn't alone. "Do I need to fear the arrival of your compatriots, Miss Everdeen?"

Everdeen handed her a new cup of tea and sat back down on her stump. "I don't see how that's any of your business, but if it makes you feel any better, he went to town to trade for supplies." She picked up a stick and stirred the fire. "I can shoot us meat, of course, and pick berries, but _that man_ got a bee in his britches this morning and had to go to town for some flour an' sugar, and a round of cards or six at the saloon." She smirked. "Between you an' me, he gets antsy trapped in here when it's _that_ time of month."

They shared a grin.

"Do you have a lot of trouble with—Snow?" They both knew who she meant.

Everdeen took a sip of tea, and set it down. "I don't tell somethin' for nothin', Miss Undersee. You first."

"I arrived a few days ago in Panem to find my fiancé," Madge began. "He was supposed to send for me when he was settled." The words tasted like dead dreams in her mouth.

Everdeen shook her head. "Everyone knows mail comes into Panem, but it don't come out."

"So I... I fainted in the street and someone thought I was a delivery for the formidable Madam Coin." She cleared her throat. "Hanna was very...welcoming." That was one way to put it.

"Comstock Hanna?" Everdeen's face scrunched up in a scowl. " _She's_ a real piece of work. Go on."

"I was able to escape, but only by the merest chance. A man I knew came to the door... A man I knew a long time ago, back in... Back home." She was twisting her hands in her petticoats, and she thrust them towards the fire to stop them from shaking. "He _saved_ me. I don't even know if he is all right! There was _shooting_."

"Yeah, that'll happen," Everdeen waved her hand dismissively. "It's the 'law of the West', or some such rot."

"He sent me to a Mr Abernathy's, for help." Madge looked at Everdeen, who was sitting straight up now, a puzzled look on her face.

"That old drunk? He ain't no use to anyone," she snarled. "Leastways, not how he _should_ have been. He was my father's friend." That caused the girl pain, Madge could sense it. There was some old wound there, still raw. Well, she knew all about _those_.

"True, he did leave me there while he went to help Mr-my old friend," she ended lamely. "That was when Mr Crane came along and extended his _invitation_ on behalf of General Snow." She looked into the flames, as though they held an answer for her. "When you found me, I was escaping." Her ankle throbbed, as if to remind her.

"Fair enough," Everdeen acknowledged. "What did you think of the great man, then? Don't hold back." Her bitter tone belied her true feelings.

"Anyone who utters _poison_ and _drink_ in the same sentence is not to be trusted."

"General Snow is one evil sonofabitch. He may as well have murdered my mother by throwing her into the asylum, and he kidnapped my sister. All for my Pa's mine claim. And he has the whole town under his thumb." Everdeen looked very small, and very young all of a sudden. "He won't stop until he has _everything_ , and maybe not even then."

"There has to be some way." Madge couldn't believe she was saying it, but it rolled off her tongue as though she'd planned it all along. "A spy living under his roof, so close he does not feel the knife until it slips into his back." _Those are dangerous words, Miss Undersee._

Everdeen's eyes took on a glimmer of respect. "I'll have to discuss it with my...associates, but that is a cunning idea, Miss Undersee."

Madge stood, stretching. "I must be going." She was not sleeping on a cave floor. No matter what Everdeen said about her 'associate' to the contrary, Madge did not trust a bandit to behave like a gentleman. Especially not if he was coming home from "one or six rounds of cards" at the saloon, trade goods not withstanding. Men in their cups acted differently, and she was no longer a lily white maid, to be cozened by fairy tales. _Gale_ , she thought. Her heart clenched. Silly girl. Why should she care that he had not come for her? He didn't know her, after all. It shouldn't matter.

But it did.


	12. Darkest Before the Dawn

**A/N: Two things. First, I made a timeline! Some dates have been altered—it's 1876 not 1878 for instance. You can find it on my ao3 dashboard(FFN won't let me link it here). Second, I changed the rating of the story to M. If I write a super explicit scene it will probably go to ao3 though, but there will be a note about it in the story.**

 **I'm so sorry about how late this chapter is. Due to real life shenanigans, it had to be pushed back. That, and if it feels like filler...well, I'm stuck in the big bad middle. I am also writing without a buffer now, and I don't have a beta, so if you see a glaring typo, shoot me a PM and I'll fix it.**

 **Thanks for your patience, and don't forget to leave a review... Seriously, they each give me happiness (even the critical ones...at least I know you cared enough to review). ~ lots of love, me.**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter Twelve ~ Darkest Before the Dawn**

 _And every demon wants his pound of flesh_  
 _But I like to keep some things to myself_  
 _I like to keep my issues strong_  
 _It's always darkest before the dawn (Florence + the Machine)_

The way out of sleep was not restful at all. There was pain, and a lot of it. His back ached with a ferocity he had not known since the first time he was whipped, back in Twelvetrees, under the shadow of the willow tree where the grass grew deep and green and the shadow of the noose creaked under the awning of the branches.

Far, far off in the distance, Gale could hear a deep, low baying, like the sound his father's blue tick, Minna, had made when she cornered a big black bear that had been stealing their honey. He stirred, disturbed.

"You're finally awake," a voice said. "How do you feel?" Gale opened his eyes. Nurse Seeder, former army nightingale in the War Between the States, sat next to him. She held up a bottle of red-brown liquid with a thinning of her lips. "Miss Cresta donated this laudanum, so don't you dare go dyin' on me and wasting it."

"Thanks, but no thanks. That's what liquor is for." Gale took a swig of alcohol that Haymitch passed him. He'd seen what opium addiction could do to a person, and it wasn't pretty. "Missus," he added belatedly.

She ripped the bottle out of his hands and dumped it out the window with a bark of disgust. "That pig swill isn't fit for human consumption. I will have Mr Odair send up something less vile."

"Godammit, you meddlin' bitch!" Abernathy squawked, reaching for the bottle too late. "That was m' best 'shine!"

Seeder glared at them both, crossing her arms. She was a thin whippet of a woman, sixty if she was a day, with iron-streaked dark hair, olive skin, and golden brown eyes. She was stronger than she looked. A woman had to be, in a hellhole like Panem. She wore men's trousers and a high-collared shirtwaist under her coat, a sash across her chest from her time with Grant's army, and a medal that nestled proudly in her collar like a cameo. "There's no need to take the Lord's name in vain, Mr Abernathy. You were the one who donated this 'shine', as I recall?"

"Not for nothin'," Haymitch made a face, but wisely said no more about it.

Seeder let out a long-suffering sigh, opened up her bag and took out a small earthenware jar. "This is yarrow salve. It must be rubbed on his back every hour, until the swelling goes down."

Haymitch put up his hands in protest. "Oh no, I've done my duty, darlin'. I ain't no one's nursemaid."

She pressed her lips together. "Nevertheless, it must be tended to. I do not want to be called to return because he has been stupid, and bad humours have set in." She turned to Gale. "That means rest, and plenty of it."

Gale groaned, throwing the pillow at Haymitch, who was openly laughing. "I have a saloon to run, in case you hadn't noticed."

"If Mr Hawthorne chooses to get himself into these situations, then Mr Hawthorne can certainly suffer the consequences," she said crisply. "Where's Miss Cartwright? She should be taking charge of this fiasco."

"Run off with a Mellark!" Haymitch guffawed like it was the funniest thing in the world. Gale wanted to pummel some sense into the drunken man, but experience had taught him that would be a very bad idea. Haymitch Abernathy had been at Gettysburg, the Battle of the Crater, Bull Run, and in the Indian Wars besides. He'd claimed on more than one occasion that he only put up with Gale for Katniss' sake...that and the fact that the Hob had the best whiskey in town. Now that Katniss was gone, Gale wondered how long the grace period would last, or if it ever had to begin with.

It wasn't like him to be so maudlin. Maybe he should rethink the laudanum after all.

Seeder covered her smile with her hand. "That _is_ unfortunate." Then she was all business. "Well, you will have to brew up a yarrow decoction instead. Soak some bandages in it and wrap them around your back. Drink this as well, it is comfrey, and will heal you from the inside. And another thing — I'm not your mother, son, but it has to be said — it's not healthy to string women along like you do. It wasn't my place to say anything about Delly, or that calico queen you've taken up with from the brothel, but whoever this Madge is, I hope you intend to make a honest woman of her." She pinned him with a dark look, collected her things, and swanned out the door. As soon as she was gone, Haymitch straddled his chair in relief, leaning on it with his arms. He lit a cigar, passing another to Gale. The two men puffed in companionable silence until Thresh stuck his head through the door.

"Give the man a cigar, Haymitch," Gale waved feebly from the bed for Thresh to come in.

Thresh accepted a light and leaned against the desk, puffing deeply. "Just wanted to tell ya that the boys and I have everything under control downstairs, Captain—I mean, Boss."

"Aw, none of that Captain shit tonight, Thresh. Give Hawthorne here a chance to recuperate." Haymitch took a slug from his flask, holding it up. "You was a real hero."

"It wasn't anything anyone else wouldn't have done," Thresh waved a hand dismissively, ashing his cigar. "And don't treat me any different, Hawthorne — I know how you get. After all the times during the wars... Yeah."

"Nothing owed between friends, Thresh." Gale cleared his throat. "You don't owe me anything, brother."

Thresh shook his head. "That's not the point." Before Gale could argue, Thresh gave a quick salute, then turned on his heel and ducked out the door.

 **XxX**

"Compliments of Miz Seeder," Thom handed a bottle of bourbon to Haymitch. "For all your trouble, she said. What's she do, throw that piss you call champagne away?" Without waiting for an answer, he put the new bottles next to the laudanum on the mantle piece, cleaning out two jars with the tail of his shirt. "Some of us drink like civilized men." He turned his back to Gale and poured the drinks.

The drink had a strangely bitter bite, but after the first gulp it went down smooth. Gale felt a slow numbing begin to settle over his back, and he sat up.

"All this for some stargazer, huh?" Thom's gaze was reproachful, but Gale couldn't blame him. "When I said Coin had a new girl, I didn't mean you should try to rescue her single-handedly, boss. And just where is this Jezebel? Shouldn't she be tending to her wounded hero?" Somehow, Thom managed to put a lifetime of sarcasm into those last two words.

"She isn't a sporting gal." Gale couldn't keep the frustration from his tone. "She's an honest woman who was being held against her will."

Thom and Haymitch shared an unreadable look.

"That's what I'm sayin'," Haymitch thumped his fist on Gale's desk. "I ain't no mother hen. Where's Comstock Hanna?"

A smirk of amusement brought the edges of Thom's lips up under his handlebar mustache. "I don't know, Abernathy, where the hell d'you _think_ a prime article like Comstock Hanna is at this hour? Thread and his men are getting a night for free over at Coin's place, and my guess is that she's flat on her back, servicing men like a camp whore after a battle." Thom raised his glass to Haymitch. "If you want to get your rocks off, you'll have to go down to the Stockade to get sucked off by some cathouse trick. No other woman will put up with your stench, old man, and that's the honest truth."

"Lay off him, Thom." Gale met Thom's baleful eye. "What's going on downstairs?"

"Finnick's moping at the bar, drowning his heartbreak with scotch and a dancing girl or two in his lap, as every night. Thresh is being cooed over by the dollar girls. Everyone's pulling for ya, Boss." He cleared his throat, and Gale was astounded to see a wetness at the corner of Thom's eye. "The girls been fightin' over who was to look after ya, but Miz Seeder put a stop to that. She says ya ain't too bad, so long as ya don't move too quick and pull her 'broidery out." He grinned. "Still, I wouldn't say no to some 'ministrations' from the gals if I was you. Pity ya can't lay on your back and enjoy it, but —"

"He don't want one of them poxy tarts near his prick, Thom," Haymitch said. "If he didn't never tup Delly, and I don't know how he resisted those enormous tits, between you an' me — well, he certainly ain't gonna recuperate any better when he's balls deep in cunny if he can't even enjoy it." He leered. "Maybe he's got himself struck on some stargazer, but that don't mean the rest of us can't reap the rewards."

"This ain't a cathouse, and those girls ain't for sale, not unless you're willing to pony up a couple of gold bands and a preacher. Me, I'm not the marrying type. And Madge — Miss Undersee — isn't a stargazer." He stared into the depths of his drink. "She's had a damned unfortunate time of it ever since she came to Panem, though. I mean to help her get back on her feet — even if I have to crawl on my knees to do it."

"You paint quite the picture, boy," Haymitch snorted. "Like I said —"

"Madge? Madge from Twelvetrees?" Thom sat down heavily on the edge of Gale's bed. "Not the one you told me about, the one who — "

Haymitch cleared his throat. "Shee-it. Not the blonde Comstock Hanna told to git?"

"She's not at your place?" His chest constricted in fear. "Where the hell is she?!" He whipped out his Colt from where his holster hung on the bedpost, pointing it at Haymitch, lips tighening at the pain from the sudden movement.

Haymitch held up his hands. "I left the...lady...at my place. For all I know she's still there. Never figured you'd get stuck on some uppity flash-piece like that, but you always did have a taste for high-class tail." He took a pull from his flask, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Remember that teacher back in St Cloud?"

"That was _your_ woman, Haymitch. And if Miss Trinket was an 'honest woman', then I'm the king of France!"

Thom was saved from Haymitch's fist in his face by an out of breath Chaff, wheezing stridently as he burst through the door. "Fight!"

"What?!" Gale was on his feet. The laudanum was remarkably effective, all told.

"Downstairs... Mellark showed up while you was out and started winning every hand at five card draw, and you know how them boys git when they're riled up. Sober as a preacher on a month of Sundays it was, 'til ol' Marvel pulls his gun out and accuses Mellark of cheating." He paused for breath. "You know Marvel. Man's got a hair-trigger temper."

"Fuck!" Not for the last time, the word was ineffective at describing the situation. Thom passed Gale his boots. Haymitch was useless, sprawled out on his chair, his eyes glassy with drink. He kicked the older man's boot. "Get up!"

Gale could hear the girls screaming from backstage, and glass breaking. He opened the door, and a bottle sailed past the balcony railing, smashing on the door frame. The bottom level was a mass of heaving violence. Gale looked for Finnick first, out of habit — of course, there he was in the thick of things, brawling like the best of them.

And where was Mellark? Standing there and taking it like a man? No, he was near the back door, and when he saw Gale looking at him, he gave a short, mocking salute with that infuriatingly pleasant smile of his. He mouthed something, but it was too far away to make out.


	13. No Rest for the Wicked pt1

**Chapter Thirteen ~ No Rest for the Wicked, Part 1**

 _I've been a fool and I've been blind_  
 _I can never leave the past behind_

 _-_ Florence + The Machine

Coming into the town at night felt terribly strange. She wore a pair of Everdeen's moccasins, a thick, warm shawl, and a somber gray dress that strained across her chest. It had obviously been meant for someone with a much smaller waist – when Madge had come out as a debutante, she had appeared to have a sixteen inch waist, thanks to a punishing corset and an aunt who knew all about the illusion of the silhouette. That was after the War, when all the boys she might have married were dead or maimed, or simply missing... And after the War, they had all trickled home one by one, except for Gale.

Gale, who had promised her the world, before declaiming his hatred of her on that morning so long ago.

After he had gone, she had run back into the house and played the rest of _Barbara Allen_ as tears poured down her cheeks. She never perfected it, never played it again. She had sworn to herself then that he hadn't meant what he said, that his heart could not be so cold.

She had waited – like a coward, she had waited – and a week later, he had gone.

 **XxX**

" _He ain't here," Mrs Hazelle Hawthorne stands_ in the doorway of the small cabin, taking up the entire space with her patched gray skirts. Deep frown lines mar her face, and she wears a black mourning band around her arm, though Madge knows Gale's father is four years gone, killed at the Battle of Chickamauga, his body buried somewhere between Tennessee and Georgia, a liminal space between heartbreak and the unknown.

She realizes that no matter how close she always thought they were, he never thought she was the kind of person he could introduce to his family. And she isn't, is she? She is the girl whose soft hands can never wash off the Yankee stain. She will never be good enough for the son of this sharp eyed Shawnee woman with the blood of the mountains running through her veins.

"You're the Undersee girl." Without waiting for an answer, Mrs Hawthorne begins to close the door, but Madge lays her hand on it.

"My mother sent a basket." It is a tiny white lie. She is the one who made up the basket, but she thinks no one can refuse a gift from her mother, who is a known invalid.

Again, she is wrong.

Mrs Hawthorne frowns at Madge, years of privation etched into her deeply lined face. She may be thirty or she may be fifty, it is impossible to tell.

Madge pulls the cloth back to reveal a loaf of fresh baked bread and a clutch of strawberries.

"Oooh, Mama, I want a piece!" A small dark head peeks out from behind Hazelle's skirts, and Madge smiles down at the tiny girl.

"You must be Posy." She crouches down and offers the basket to the girl. "Would you like some? I bet this will taste a treat with the berries mashed on it. That's how I eat them."

"We don't cotton to charity," Hazelle isn't rude enough to pry Madge's fingers off the door frame, but she isn't polite enough to let her into the house, either. She nudges Posy back into the house. "Go play with your dolly, Posy."

"I'll take her, Ma." A boy with spectacles and dark hair falling into his eyes comes to the door. His eyes light up when he sees Madge and the bread. "Look, Ma! Gale's girl brought you chicory!" He points to the edge of the basket, where Madge had stuck a handkerchief-wrapped twist of her mother's precious chicory. Her mother doesn't even know she is gone, shut up in her room with the megrims, dark curtains shuttered against the light.

Hazelle's eyes have gone from mere cloudy to stormy. "Like I told the girl, we don't accept charity, Vick." She gently touches Vick on the shoulder and he takes Posy's hand, leading her away from Madge with the barest of nods.

"This isn't charity." Madge knows that her tone has taken on a childish insistence, but she cannot seem to keep the whine from creeping into her voice. "It's an apology."

Hazelle snorts. "You're ten days too late, girl! He's gone."

"Gone?" Madge feels her heart fall to her feet. "But... But he said..." _I hate you,_ Gale's voice sneers in her head. But it isn't true. It _can't_ be true. Not after last summer, and all those stolen moments in between. Can it?

"I don't know what kind of promises you think my son was making you, but you're not the first or the only one to come to my door, bearing gifts and hoping it'll put you in my good graces." Hazelle still doesn't move, but she drops her hand from the latch. "At least you didn't come here with a belly on you."

Madge colors in confusion, and Hazelle laughs, mockingly.

"Oh, you town girls, with your pretty dresses and your high-faultin' morals. I ain't no fool, I've seen the way the girls buzz 'round for my son. But he only wanted what he couldn't have. And now ... Yes, he's well shut of _your_ kind. Making him think he's better than he is. Making him think he could ever have a chance. You're but a child, a girl who don't know her place." Hazelle sighs. "Little girl," she says, and her voice is full of a very adult pity, "He's joined them fools out there. Thinks he's off to have an adventure. Thinks a stripe or two'll impress a pretty girl. He got permission to pay court to my cousin's daughter and write her letters just before he left."

She has forgotten how to breathe, or how a heart can keep beating. All she feels is a hole where her heart ought to be. She backs away from the door and it slams in her face. And then she is running through the hills, running and running, and she falls on her knees in the meadow, screaming at the sky until her voice is hoarse, sobbing in the long grass until dusk has fallen and the crickets sing in the empty space left behind by his absence. Like he was never there at all.

 **XxX**

Yes, years later she dances at a debutante ball, but her heart is not in it. She never marries, though marriage by this time is less of a heart's pledge and more of a business transaction. She has a fair dowry, but no man makes enough of an impression, though her father is kind enough to allow her to marry for love, like he did.

Instead, she cares for her mother as the years pass and her beauty begins to fade, like a wild rose pressed between sheaves of paper — Until she meets Peeta, who sees into her heart, who paints a beautiful woman with sorrowful eyes. Only then does she allow herself to dream, to believe that perhaps a man with a paintbrush and a broken heart of his own can help her learn what love truly means.

 **XxX**

 _Breathe_ , Madge reminded herself. _Don't be a fool._ The most important thing about Everdeen's dress was not that it had silhouette, but that it had _pockets_. She slipped her hand down one of them, feeling for the knife. She would never go without it again.

"Only a few more hours," she whispered to herself. When the stage came, she would head to Cheyenne with it and wire her father. The gold dust that Everdeen had given her was a talisman in her pocket. But it would keep for now.

Panem at night was another place entirely. Gaslight spilled out of every open door and window, from the lowliest saloon to the ritziest gentlemen's clubs. There were men on the porches, there were men in the streets, singing and carousing, brawling and vomiting in the gutter.

Still, she clung to the shadows, not wanting to draw attention to herself. She found her attention drawn to a second story window, where Cashmere lounged, indifferently smoking a cigarette and advertising her wares to passerby. Her robe lay open, revealing a black stocking clipped to a black corset with garters. Her nipples, spilling out of her top, were rouged a bright red to match her lips, garish in the yellow light.

Madge was half-revolted, half-fascinated. Unseen, she observed Cashmere as she propositioned a man in the street with merely body language. To be honest, the men didn't need much convincing. Cashmere positively oozed sex.

 _The Hob is right across the street._ Annie's wistful sigh came unbidden to her thoughts.

 _Gale_ , Madge thought, not without regret. It wasn't a surprise he hadn't recognized her. Sometimes she no longer recognized herself. But... he _had_ saved her. Surely she owed him an explanation before she went? Maybe she could finally get some closure - didn't he owe _her_ that, at long last?

 **XxX**

She snuck around the back. Better not to be out in the open tonight. Better not to be seen.

She was so intent on keeping to the shadows that she almost missed him when he came out the back door. He was whistling, a jaunty tune.

"Peeta!"

 **XxX**

"Miss Undersee?" Shocked, he crossed the space between them, looking her up and down in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

He did not take her in his arms, or even take her hand. She knew she should not be surprised, but it still stung.

"You told me..." There is so much to say and so little time. "In Twelvetrees," she began, but he cut her off.

"Didn't you get my letters?" He ran a hand through his thick golden hair. He had a waxed mustache and a small, neatly trimmed goatee.

Dressed sharply, Peeta Mellark looked like an Eastern dude and not at all like an outlaw should look. He wore a slightly rumpled dark suit and a fashionable necktie, broad shoulders straining at the seams of his jacket. She wondered how long it had been since he wore it last. It made him seem very out of place in rough and tumble Panem.

"No. General Snow has them. He showed them to me, but..."

"Snow? Goddammit!" His hands grasped her shoulders, and he gave her a little shake. "What happened? Sit." He pulled her over to a bench against the wall of a darkened building. "Start again."

"He _took_ me. All my luggage was stolen, and my money. I went from the stagecoach to waking up in that horrible Madam Coin's establishment. Mr Mellark, why is he looking for you? What did you — "

" _Took_ you?" In the moonlight, his face paled. "You have to leave. I mean it, get out for your own good. Here," he pulled a billfold from his waistcoat and spread it open. Madge stifled a gasp. It was bulging with cash. "Twenty-five should get you on the first stage to Chicago, all your room and board along the way, and a hotel for the night when you arrive. Then you can wire your father for the rest. Don't worry about paying me back." He continued blathering on, but she stopped him with a finger to his lips.

"Mr Mellark." She touched his sleeve, and he looked down at her. "Do you remember when you said I was the most beautiful girl in the mountains? That there was a place out West for the two of us to be free?"

Peeta had the grace to look embarrassed. "That was just... Look, you're an intelligent, well-read woman. A _beautiful_ woman. Sometimes, when a man has urges... Er, I mean, you're much too good for me — better than I deserve. I never meant to hurt you, but..."

She grabbed his hand before he could say more and pressed it to the swell of her belly, hidden in the folds of her skirt.

"Fuck!" Peeta jumped up, staring at her in alarm. "You can't scare a man like that. Are you sure?"

"Women know these things, Mr Mellark. Of course I'm sure." Besides, it was becoming too obvious to hide.

"It's not mine, Miss Undersee." He began to pace. "It's just not possible. It doesn't add up."

"Mr Mellark," she began, but he didn't let her finish.

"I can't marry you," he said, shoving a wad of cash into her hands, "because I'm already married."

 **XxX**

 **XxX**

 **XxX**

 **Historical Notes:**

 **megrims:** an old word for migraine.

 **Battle of Chickamauga:** The campaign and major battle take their name from West Chickamauga Creek. In popular histories, it is often said that Chickamauga is loosely translated from a Cherokee word meaning "river of death".

The Battle of Chickamauga was fought between northwestern Georgia and southeastern Tennessee from September 18-20, 1863. It was the first major action of the American Civil War fought in Georgia, the most significant Union defeat in the Western Theater, and had the second highest casualties after Gettysburg. It was fought between the Army of the Cumberland(Ohio) and the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

 **Pockets:** In this article, the author argues that the freedoms a woman has in a time period = pockets in her skirts or pants. /articles/133948/the-weird-complicated-sexist-history-of-pockets#.VCL620yvg I figured that Katniss was the type of person who would want pockets in her skirts, when she was forced to wear them.


	14. Eye of the Storm, pt1

**Chapter Fourteen ~ Eye of the Storm, pt1**

Gale knew he shouldn't eavesdrop, but when he saw Mellark sitting at the back of the old smithy, talking to someone in a low tone, he couldn't help but catch a few snatches of their conversation.

 _It's just not possible... It doesn't add up..._ What in the hell did Mellark have to be so goddamned riled up about, anyway? He'd already stolen Katniss - _twice_! - and turned her against Gale, did he have to poison everything he touched? Part of him knew he wasn't being fair to the man, but if Mellark's bosses knew what a cock-up he'd made of things... Well, Gale could almost count on the inevitability that the man's arrogance would be short lived. Truth was, Mellark had trusted Gale with his secret.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

 _Damn_ that fucking shyster and his meddling, Pinkerton ways.

Finnick tapped him on the shoulder and Gale nearly shot his friend's head off. "Jaysus! Put that thing down, Hawthorne!" He dragged Gale back into the Hob's stockroom. "I got the crowd to calm down. Thresh is manning the bar."

"How in the hell... Never mind." Gale could hear a warbling voice singing _The Rambling Cowboy,_ accompanied by a plonking, heavy hand on the piano. He was going to need to have it tuned. Just another thing to remember.

 _Come all you reckless and rambling boys who have listened to this song,_

 _If it hasn't done you any good, it hasn't done you any wrong;_

 _But when you court a pretty girl, just marry her while you can,_

 _For if you go across the plains she'll marry another man._

"...So?" Finnick waggled his eyebrows. "Boss!"

"What?" Gale was feeling the euphoric effects of the laudanum. Just how much _had_ Thom tipped into his drink, anyway?

"Annie, boss. Mind if I go steal a golden hour with my lovely lady?"

Gale looked at his pocket watch. "Now? I'd wait until tomorrow. You want her fresh as a virgin trick in a cathouse, not limp as a rag doll." Finnick looked pained. "What? It's the truth, Finn. You never complain, but I know Hanna's had to finish the job when Annie couldn't."

"I know. I just want to see her, Hawthorne. To kiss her soft cheek and tuck her into bed, so she isn't having to be alone when the nightmares come." Finnick looked miserable. He had it bad, Gale thought. "I could go to Hanna, but it isn't punishment I'm wanting. You know how Hanna gets when the last customer rolls around."

Did he ever. He'd made that mistake once, and only once. He'd been sitting lightly for a week after. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Quiet, Odair."

"I guess I could go to Cashmere, or Octavia. But Tavie squeals like a stuck pig when she comes, and I don't like that look Cashmere gets in her eye when she sees me. Like I'm just a boy again, coin in my pocket for a go in her tent behind the lines. Besides, Annie always looks at me like I'm a hero, no matter what I do. She's the one I want to be seein' when I go to bed at night, and when I wake up in the mornin'. I can tell her anythin'. That's special, 'tis."

"Aw, just go." Gale waved his hand. He didn't want to talk about Saint Annie, prostitute with a heart of gold. It was pathetic to see how Finnick brightened when Gale waved him on. He didn't think he'd ever been so stuck on a woman.

Except...

 _Madge_ , his traitorous brain whispered.

Twelve long years ago. A summer that rocked the foundations of his world, and feelings that frightened him so badly that he fled headlong into the bloody battlefields of the Civil War, never again to return to the girl in the mountains.

And now, here she was. Surely it meant something? With a lightning bolt of clarity, Gale realized just who it was that Peeta had been talking to in the alley. He was on his feet, hurrying out the back door before he could stop himself.

But the back alley was empty.

She was already gone.

 **XxX**

A/N: Thanks to Hawtsee and Carol for your awesome reviews! I will be going on a trip for the next week and a half. Therefore I'm uploading two chapters and a very short scene so I don't leave you guys with a cliffhanger.

"Rambling Cowboy" is a real song from the 1800s.


	15. No Rest for the Wicked, Pt 2

**Chapter Fifteen ~ No Rest for the Wicked, pt 2**

 _It's not mine. I'm already married._

Peeta's words hit her like a slap in the face.

"What?" Madge didn't recognize the sound of her own voice. "What do you mean, Mr Mellark? How can you... I mean, you asked me..." She looked at his hand. He wasn't wearing a ring.

"We married in the old manner, a promise between ourselves and the man above. But we had a terrible fight. I'd lied to her about what I do for a living and... She said she never wanted to see me again, naturally. So I went back East to take care of my father's will. He ran the bakery in Twelvetrees."

"The bakery!" It had been years since she thought of it. "But that burned down in the beginning of the War."

"My father was a Union sympathizer, and, I'm sorry to say, my mother wasn't. They split up and joined opposing sides. I heard she worked as a laundress." His laugh was bitter, when it came. "That must have been a real come-down for the old bitch. She was the one who did it, did you know? Confessed on her deathbed."

"I... I didn't know that."

"No, of course _you_ wouldn't have. Sitting in your mansion on the hill, playing your piano, letting the world pass you by. The princess in the tower, waiting to be set free. Bet you fucked your way through Charleston after you left Twelvetrees," he said with a twist of his lips. "Don't think I never went to town. Got an earful about that whore aunt of yours, and about you and Hawthorne. There's bad blood between that sonuvabitch and me, in case you hadn't already guessed."

"I was too young for that sort of thing." She reeled from the bile in his words.

He scoffed. "Young? Some of the girls in those hills were pregnant by twelve." He stopped pacing and reached into his billfold again. "Don't contact me again, Miss Undersee. I'm a married man. I could claim that child of yours and declare you an unfit mother. Raise it up properly. Teach it right from wrong." With every sentence, he threw another bill into her skirt. "Better to be raised a Mellark than a Hawthorne bastard."

"You are an utter cad!" Her palm met his cheek with a satisfying _crack_. Then she was half-running, half-waddling down the alley with her skirts bunched in her hands as she ran from him. Money fluttered to the ground.

"Aw, hell," she heard Peeta say behind her. "Madge, come back!"

He caught her in his arms just at the corner. "Don't cry."

"You said my child would be a bastard! You called me a whore!"

"I didn't say that." He stroked her cheek, his fingers lingering near her mouth. "I said the world doesn't need more bastards, and that you don't want folks to think you're a whore. Go to Chicago and have your baby there. Give it up, take care of it, or take it home."

"It's a bit too late to have it 'taken care of'," she remarked acidly. "I'm near six months gone. And what if I chose to stay here? What then?"

"Then you should beware the consequences," he said baldly. "Just because I don't think the bastard's mine doesn't mean Snow won't devise some way to use it against you. And if you're worried about me, I'm a married man, Miss Undersee. No matter how much I've missed you in my ... bed." He looked as though he wanted to say more, but they were interrupted when a shout echoed down the streets.

"Mellark! Come out and draw your pistol, you lily-livered weasel!"

"Fuck! I have to get back home. I'm too old to deal with idiots like Marvel and their sore pride." Peeta turned on his heel and shook his finger in Madge's face. "You stay here. I don't want you thinking you can tell Katniss."

"Tell Katniss what?"


	16. Eye of the Storm, pt 2

**Chapter Sixteen ~ Eye of the Storm, pt 2**

Gale had never been so elated or so terrified to see anyone in his entire life. And wasn't that the way it always went with her? It wasn't her fault, being what she was. It was just the way things were. And maybe a bit of it was the laudanum in his system. He didn't care.

"Tell Katniss what?" Gale repeated. Mellark grimaced, glancing down at Madge with distaste in his eyes. Gale didn't have to wait for an answer. He took a swing and his fist connected with Peeta's chin, knocking the shorter man off his feet. Peeta fell to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

"Madge," Gale held out his hand to her. He still felt strangely euphoric, and when she walked up to him, his blood roared with adrenaline. She smelled of woodsmoke and something else, something undefinable and yet so uniquely _her_. His pulse quickened and he took her hand in his, suddenly unsure.

"Gale," she answered quietly, a question in her voice.

Gale didn't need to speak to give her the answer. He bent his head to hers, and claimed her mouth with a kiss. Her arms went around his neck, pulling him closer, and when she opened her mouth to his tongue, he was lost.

XxX

A/N: Hey, I said it was short. But I didn't want to leave you guys hanging again! Stay tuned for the next chapter, Old Scars, which will be out after I get back.


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